Indian Nuclear Power: lacks accountability and Business acumen
With Indo-US nuclear deal going no where and the future of Indian nuclear power looking dark: the big honchos have came out and started down grading the "dream targets" which were probably never achievable. Sincerely the efforts never matched to the stature of targets dreamed of. Though mismatch of target-efforts has become a common phenomena these days for Indian power sector remembering the much hyped Rpower(quoting at below 200)..find few interesting article supporting the views expressed which are strictly personal.
1) Uranium is why India needs N-deal (article form Hindustan times)
Critics are waxing eloquent about what has been said, or not said, in the US legislation authorising nuclear cooperation with India. But almost none of them are confronting the reason why India so desperately needs the US deal — lack of adequate domestic natural uranium and a nuclear power programme that is way behind schedule.
All the countries who can assist us constitute a cartel, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, whose goal is to deny technology or material to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, like India. The US legislation is a major step towards ending India’s isolation in the world nuclear market. "Separating the civil and military part of our nuclear programmes will benefit both of them," says K Santhanam, the nuclear scientist who ran India’s nuclear weapons programme at the time of the Pokhran test.
The Planning Commission’s mid-term appraisal of the 10th Five Year Plan (2002-2007) of June 2005 was the first public confirmation that India’s nuclear power programme was in trouble. It pointed out that "given the limited natural uranium resources", India must seek 20,000 MW on a "turnkey basis", or "alternatively India must seek nuclear fuel on competitive terms" for a similar level of capacity to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). This was a roundabout way of saying that India needed to either get foreign companies to build reactors in India or import fuel and build them indigenously.
In a paper for the International Panel on Fissile Material published a few months ago, four leading scientists — Zia Mian, AH Nayyar, R Rajaraman and MV Ramana — referred to NPCIL data showing how existing nuclear reactors are running at lower capacity factors over the past few years. The authors said their estimates are that India has been using uranium from past stockpiles and "in the absence of uranium imports or cut-backs in India’s nuclear power generation, this stockpile will be exhausted by 2007". The second major reason why India needs the deal is that it is vital for the future of our indigenous power programme.
On Saturday, CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury declared that the US was aiming to scupper the thorium programme. If anything, the deal will salvage the programme, which is doomed minus the import of natural uranium (U238). According to Santhanam, "Without adequate plutonium, India cannot successfully transit to its second stage. And to transit there requires uranium, imported or otherwise."
According to Homi Bhabha’s plan, in the first stage, India would use its natural uranium in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors to produce power as well as plutonium as a by-product. In the second stage, this plutonium would be used in Fast Breeder Reactors with natural uranium to breed more plutonium and power. In the third stage, thorium would be irradiated in reactors and yield U-233, a fissile material. But as of now there is simply not enough plutonium to create a sustainable fast breeder economy.
To get that going, India needs to scale up to 20,000 MW of nuclear energy originally targeted for 2000, but will now be achieved only by 2020, and that too only if the NSG embargoes are lifted. To reach that stage, India also needs better and larger reactors. The average Indian reactor-size is 220 MW and going to 540, while the international norm is 1,000 MW and growing. Finland, for example, is making a reactor with a capacity of 1,600 MW.
Almost all authorities believe that this can be done by opening up the nuclear power sector. But this can happen only after the US has prised open the NSG door by working out a bilateral agreement with India on the parameters of cooperation.
All the countries who can assist us constitute a cartel, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, whose goal is to deny technology or material to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, like India. The US legislation is a major step towards ending India’s isolation in the world nuclear market. "Separating the civil and military part of our nuclear programmes will benefit both of them," says K Santhanam, the nuclear scientist who ran India’s nuclear weapons programme at the time of the Pokhran test.
The Planning Commission’s mid-term appraisal of the 10th Five Year Plan (2002-2007) of June 2005 was the first public confirmation that India’s nuclear power programme was in trouble. It pointed out that "given the limited natural uranium resources", India must seek 20,000 MW on a "turnkey basis", or "alternatively India must seek nuclear fuel on competitive terms" for a similar level of capacity to be built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). This was a roundabout way of saying that India needed to either get foreign companies to build reactors in India or import fuel and build them indigenously.
In a paper for the International Panel on Fissile Material published a few months ago, four leading scientists — Zia Mian, AH Nayyar, R Rajaraman and MV Ramana — referred to NPCIL data showing how existing nuclear reactors are running at lower capacity factors over the past few years. The authors said their estimates are that India has been using uranium from past stockpiles and "in the absence of uranium imports or cut-backs in India’s nuclear power generation, this stockpile will be exhausted by 2007". The second major reason why India needs the deal is that it is vital for the future of our indigenous power programme.
On Saturday, CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury declared that the US was aiming to scupper the thorium programme. If anything, the deal will salvage the programme, which is doomed minus the import of natural uranium (U238). According to Santhanam, "Without adequate plutonium, India cannot successfully transit to its second stage. And to transit there requires uranium, imported or otherwise."
According to Homi Bhabha’s plan, in the first stage, India would use its natural uranium in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors to produce power as well as plutonium as a by-product. In the second stage, this plutonium would be used in Fast Breeder Reactors with natural uranium to breed more plutonium and power. In the third stage, thorium would be irradiated in reactors and yield U-233, a fissile material. But as of now there is simply not enough plutonium to create a sustainable fast breeder economy.
To get that going, India needs to scale up to 20,000 MW of nuclear energy originally targeted for 2000, but will now be achieved only by 2020, and that too only if the NSG embargoes are lifted. To reach that stage, India also needs better and larger reactors. The average Indian reactor-size is 220 MW and going to 540, while the international norm is 1,000 MW and growing. Finland, for example, is making a reactor with a capacity of 1,600 MW.
Almost all authorities believe that this can be done by opening up the nuclear power sector. But this can happen only after the US has prised open the NSG door by working out a bilateral agreement with India on the parameters of cooperation.
2)India’s forgotten N-gold(article from hindustantimes)
Nearly three years ago, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood on the lawns of the White House with President George W Bush, announcing a civil nuclear deal with the US, there was another country he could have turned to for fuel for India’s N-power plants: India.
Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. Even as it scouts for nuclear fuel from the US and elsewhere, India has been sitting on massive, untapped reserves of uranium, hundreds of tonnes of which have been discovered over the past couple of years — adding to the over 1 lakh tonnes already identified in Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. In the context of the bitter political debate in India over taking N-fuel from the US, the irony is inescapable.
India’s atomic energy establishment has done next to nothing to tap deposits identified up to 15 years ago. Mining is yet to begin at several sites explored, identified and handed through the 1990s by the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD), the government’s uranium exploration arm, to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL).
Some untapped reserves in Meghalaya contain the best-available quality of uranium. And according to Anjan Chaki, chief of Hyderabad-based AMD, many of the new reserves too contain a much better quality of ore than is currently available.
However, despite having no uranium, the government has gone about spending thousands of crores on new N-power plants. “The country has been burdened with overcapacity of nuclear power plants with little uranium to run them even though, ironically, we have had it all along,” a top official told Hindustan Times.
Out of the 4,000 MW-plus installed capacity of India’s nuclear power plants, almost 2,000 MW capacity is lying idle. That is a waste of at least Rs 16,000 crore of public investment — it takes up to Rs 8 crore to build the capacity of generating one MW of nuclear power. India currently uses about 1,300 tonnes of uranium a year.
Chaki suggests costs might have been behind the sloth. “Perhaps if they had come out of Singhbhum in Jharkhand, and gone out to mine, things would have been better, but perhaps they did not have sufficient funds.”
However, lack of funds has never been seen as a problem for India’s atomic energy programme, which has a Rs 8,000 crore budget, direct supervision of, and access to, the PM, and the legal power to acquire any area for exploration.
Sitting in his heavily guarded complex in Jharkhand’s Jaduguda town, UCIL’s chairman-cum-managing director Ramendra Gupta dismissed allegations of slackness.
“We are on track to opening up new projects, and while opening up new projects, sometimes there are some delays because of land acquisition, environmental clearances, and opposition from local groups,” he told HT. He, however, agreed, there was “some mismatch (between the need and availability of uranium) for the time being, which is expected to be over once the new projects are commissioned.”
Nuclear power comprises a minuscule three per cent of India's electricity production, which is dominated by coal-based thermal power (72%) and hydro power (25%). The government touts nuclear power as the vehicle for the next stage of Indian economic growth. But on current form, even the modest target of extracting 8% of power from nuclear sources by 2020 seems out of reach.
By comparison, about 17% of power worldwide comes from nuclear sources, including 80% in France, 40% or more in eight other countries, and 20% in the US.
“We might be badly short on nuclear fuel,” an official said. “But we are certainly big on talk.”
Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. Even as it scouts for nuclear fuel from the US and elsewhere, India has been sitting on massive, untapped reserves of uranium, hundreds of tonnes of which have been discovered over the past couple of years — adding to the over 1 lakh tonnes already identified in Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
Together, these uranium resources would be enough to run all of India’s current and planned nuclear power plants for their entire lifetime of 40 years. In the context of the bitter political debate in India over taking N-fuel from the US, the irony is inescapable.
India’s atomic energy establishment has done next to nothing to tap deposits identified up to 15 years ago. Mining is yet to begin at several sites explored, identified and handed through the 1990s by the Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD), the government’s uranium exploration arm, to the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL).
Some untapped reserves in Meghalaya contain the best-available quality of uranium. And according to Anjan Chaki, chief of Hyderabad-based AMD, many of the new reserves too contain a much better quality of ore than is currently available.
However, despite having no uranium, the government has gone about spending thousands of crores on new N-power plants. “The country has been burdened with overcapacity of nuclear power plants with little uranium to run them even though, ironically, we have had it all along,” a top official told Hindustan Times.
Out of the 4,000 MW-plus installed capacity of India’s nuclear power plants, almost 2,000 MW capacity is lying idle. That is a waste of at least Rs 16,000 crore of public investment — it takes up to Rs 8 crore to build the capacity of generating one MW of nuclear power. India currently uses about 1,300 tonnes of uranium a year.
Chaki suggests costs might have been behind the sloth. “Perhaps if they had come out of Singhbhum in Jharkhand, and gone out to mine, things would have been better, but perhaps they did not have sufficient funds.”
However, lack of funds has never been seen as a problem for India’s atomic energy programme, which has a Rs 8,000 crore budget, direct supervision of, and access to, the PM, and the legal power to acquire any area for exploration.
Sitting in his heavily guarded complex in Jharkhand’s Jaduguda town, UCIL’s chairman-cum-managing director Ramendra Gupta dismissed allegations of slackness.
“We are on track to opening up new projects, and while opening up new projects, sometimes there are some delays because of land acquisition, environmental clearances, and opposition from local groups,” he told HT. He, however, agreed, there was “some mismatch (between the need and availability of uranium) for the time being, which is expected to be over once the new projects are commissioned.”
Nuclear power comprises a minuscule three per cent of India's electricity production, which is dominated by coal-based thermal power (72%) and hydro power (25%). The government touts nuclear power as the vehicle for the next stage of Indian economic growth. But on current form, even the modest target of extracting 8% of power from nuclear sources by 2020 seems out of reach.
By comparison, about 17% of power worldwide comes from nuclear sources, including 80% in France, 40% or more in eight other countries, and 20% in the US.
“We might be badly short on nuclear fuel,” an official said. “But we are certainly big on talk.”
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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