What ails Indian nuclear energy sector?

India’s nuclear energy saga began just after Independence, with the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission. In the 75 years since, India has developed nuclear power capacity of 8,180 MW, of which 2,000 MW was built by Russians. 

This number, by any standard, is modest — especially since the two initial challenges — technology and access to uranium — are non-existent now. 

India today prides itself on its expertise in pressurised heavy water reactors, with an excellent safety track record; and it has unhindered access to uranium after the 2008 Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.

The slow progress in nuclear power generation at a time when clean energy is an urgent need, coupled with the huge unexplained delays in projects of national importance, begs the question: What ails the Indian nuclear energy sector? 

After coal, thorium is India’s second-largest energy resource. Since coal cannot be used extensively due to global warming, thorium emerges as the primary long-term energy mainstay. Thorium can guarantee energy security to India. Yet, India has still not started using thorium. 

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There are (at least) two pathways for the thorium cycle — the third stage of India’s three-stage nuclear programme and the ‘accelerator-driven subcritical system’ route, which involves generation of neutrons through ‘spallation’. Neither has made meaningful progress. 

Stuck in the middle

Given the shortage of uranium in India, Dr Homi Bhabha, the architect of India’s nuclear energy sector, had chalked out the three-stage programme. In the first stage, India would use natural uranium in pressurised heavy water reactors. Natural uranium contains only 0.7 per cent of uranium-235, the key material; the rest gets converted into another nuclear fuel, plutonium-239, which can be recovered. 

In the second stage, plutonium-239 is mixed with uranium-238 to fuel ‘fast-breeder reactors’. Here again, uranium-238 transmutes into more plutonium-239. 

Over time, with a good build-up of plutonium-239, it is time for the third stage, where thorium, used alongside plutonium-239, is converted into yet another nuclear fuel, uranium-233. The fast breeder reactors in the second stage are critical for getting into the third stage, where thorium comes into play.

India remains stuck at the second stage. 

Work on the 500 MW prototype fast-breeder reactor, which started in 2004, is yet to be completed. 

This year, on March 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi witnessed the ‘commencement of core loading’, which a government press release described as a “historic milestone”. 

Nothing further has been heard since, though the Department of Atomic Energy regularly informs Parliament that the PFBR is at an “advanced stage of construction”.

Since India does not have even one fast-breeder reactor for the second stage, the third — thorium cycle — is still a long way off. 

Second route

The second pathway for thorium cycle — accelerator-driven subcritical system (ADSS) — involves generating neutrons using particle accelerators such as cyclotrons. 

The neutrons are needed to bombard and split the nuclei of other atoms, generating energy in the process. 

Think of a particle accelerator as a gun, with a proton or an alpha particle (a clump of two protons and two neutrons) as the bullet.

With a high-energy particle accelerator, say 1 GeV or more, you can get alpha particles to bombard a metal (mostly tungsten or lead) to release neutrons through a process known as spallation. 

While the ADSS project has been talked about since 2003, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is only now considering building a 1 GeV particle accelerator, even though the need for it has been felt for decades. 

Besides enabling India to harness thorium, ADSS has another significant importance — it can neutralise nuclear waste by transmuting it into non- or less radioactive material. 

Neither BARC nor the Department of Atomic Energy responded to emailed queries on the progress of these projects. 

Yet another delayed project is the Indian high-temperature reactor (IHTR). 

Today, everyone talks about the ‘hydrogen economy’ as the future. BARC had developed the IHTR back in 2006, and its scientists IV Dulera and RK Sinha made a presentation in 2007, at an international conference in Japan, on IHTR as a means of producing green hydrogen. But, till date, there is no IHTR. 

Again, BARC has not responded to requests for an update. 

Heavy water reactor

Another project on which the country is dragging its feet is the advanced heavy water reactor. This indigenous design has been project-ready for over 20 years. A former BARC scientist told Quantum that AHWR awaits only a “deployment decision”. 

Dr SK Jain, as Chairman of Nuclear Power Corporation of India, had written this about AHWR in a publication: “The AHWR is another innovative concept, which will act as a bridge between the first and third stage essentially to advance thorium utilisation without undergoing second stage of the three-stage programme.” 

One cannot help but contrast BARC/Department of Atomic Energy with India’s space agency, ISRO. Though ISRO was set up much later (1969), its achievements, including moon landing and Mangalyaan, are there for all to see. 

The space sector has done well, despite being equally challenged in terms of technology denial. In contrast, as a former nuclear scientist put it, BARC has little to show beyond ‘irradiation’. 

So, building nuclear plants, PFBR, ADSS, IHTR, AHWR and other projects like ‘molten salt reactors’ are all lagging by decades — and without explanation. 

Today, newer prospects are emerging — small modular reactors and more benign and efficient fuels such as HALEU and ANEEL. 

India cannot afford to miss the bus again.