The Hindu Business Line : Next stage in nuclear reactors

The stress on conserving fossil fuels and a scale-up in renewable energy technology seems to be narrowing the options for high energy consuming countries such as India. With little option but to go the nuclear route to augment power generation, it is hoped that India will, following its agreement with the US, now have access to various cutting-edge technologies.

THINGS are looking up again for nuclear energy. In the coming decades, major international initiatives promise to take reactor design to the next level, that ensures safety and shuts out proliferation.

Nuclear fusion, akin to the process of sustainable energy produced by the Sun, is back in the news. Besides producing power, efforts are on to use nuclear energy to split water and produce hydrogen, which can be harnessed to fuel vehicles.

Further, the stress on conserving fossil fuels, the increasingly difficult economics of tapping and using them, and a scale-up in renewable energy technology seem to be narrowing the options for high energy consuming and rapidly developing countries such as India.

In terms of improving reactor design and meeting the stringent demands of economy, safety, and sustainability, at least two promising international collaborative projects have evolved.

Under the aegis of the Vienna-headquartered International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a group of 14 countries has got together to float INPRO — Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycle Programme. And a couple of years of groundwork has already gone into it.

The second big project is the US-initiated Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems. Ten nations are participating in the effort, launched again a few years ago, under the banner of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF).

In both these global programmes the basic objectives are that the nuclear reactors will be used for the purpose of generation of electricity, production of hydrogen fuel, desalination of sea-water and district heating.

Where does India stand? While the country has emerged a significant partner in the INPRO initiative, it does not find a place in the GIF, primarily due to its well-known stand on such issues as signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

With the signing of the India-US nuclear pact, New Delhi is expected to get a participant status in the GIF initiative as well. This is one of the salient points mentioned in the agreement signed in July by the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the US President, Mr George W Bush.

Under the INPRO, the IAEA has taken up three reactor models that it considers could meet the stated objectives of sustainability, economics, safety, waste and environment, and is proliferation-resistant. India's Advanced Heavy Water Reactor of 300 MWe is one of them.

Argentina's CAREM, a medium-size (150-300 MWe), light water reactor and Russia's BN-800, a fast-breeder reactor, are the other two that are being put to rigorous testing since end-2003. In INPRO, besides these countries, Canada, China, Germany, Korea, Pakistan, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Bulgaria and Turkey are the key participating countries.

According to Dr C. Ganguly, who heads the nuclear materials programme at the IAEA: "Economics and proliferation resistance are the major concerns in the nuclear energy sector today." Both these international initiatives are aimed to answer them. By 2020-25, the first set of commercial grade reactors is expected to be available. As for the INPRO programme, the IAEA will rate the reactor designs, and the interested countries can choose from them and set up power plants.

The reactor designs in INPRO are inherently passive, and Chernobyl-type accidents are not a possibility in these reactors. The reactors are also designed in such a way that no nuclear material, especially the dual-use plutonium, can be diverted (for weapons programmes).

Among the countries with nuclear technology, France, Japan, Russia, India and the UK have opted for the closed fuel cycle, which means they reprocess the used fuel in nuclear reactors.

The US, on the other hand, follows the once-through open fuel cycle, which means the spent fuel is not reprocessed but is contained as waste. This is what is followed at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, near Mumbai, which was set up with American help and runs on enriched uranium. The Generation IV nuclear energy systems (GIF) programme led by the US has Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Switzerland and the UK as the other members. Its key objectives are to generate electricity, produce hydrogen for transportation and desalinate sea-water.

The GIF offers a wide range of reactor designs proposed by different countries. Under study are the Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) of the US; Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) of Switzerland; Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) of Japan; the Super-Critical Water-Cooled Reactor (SCWR) of Canada and the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) of France. These operate at higher temperatures than today's reactors and are to be demonstrated between 2010 and 2030.

In the background of experiences in Pakistan, North Korea and Iran, the US-led initiative has been taken forward for being clean, safe, cost-effective and resistant to diversion of materials that can be used for weapons proliferation. These systems also employ a closed fuel cycle to maximise the resource base and minimise the high level of wastes to be sent to a repository. The sizes are in the range of 150 MWe to 1500 MWe.

Interestingly, the US' National Energy Policy, US-Vision 2020, envisages adding 50,000 MWe of nuclear power generating capacity to the national grid. This is in addition to the existing 103 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of nearly 98,000 MWe. This, in turn, constitutes about 20 per cent of the total energy mix.

While technological upgradation, economic viability and proliferation resistance seem to have been adequately emphasised, the safety factor, in the event of accidents, also needs to be taken care of. The International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group has suggested that all future nuclear plants should be safer by a factor of 10 compared to the best of the present ones.

The ITER is an ambitious project that has been talked about for quite some time now. Meaning "the way" in Latin, ITER is an experimental project between today's research on plasma physics and tomorrow's electricity-producing fusion power plants.

The countries involved in this pursuit are the US, Japan, the EU, Russia, Switzerland, China, France and Korea. The collaboration is among countries interested in fusion research.

The objective is to demonstrate the production of 500 MWe of fusion power. Very recently, the site for the project has been finalised at Aix-en-Provence, France.

Though India is interested in fusion research and has included it in its roadmap, being outside of the NPT umbrella has so far forced it to pursue it own efforts. With the recent signing of the India-US agreement, India is expected to join this group of countries and both contribute globally as well as accelerate its own programme.

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