India’s 3-Stage Nuclear Power Programme

After independence when India was just starting its nuclear program, the country’s infrastructure and industrial set were basic and there weren't many research centres with required facilities. The Indian scientists were trained and educated in prestigious institutions and had their vision for the field. However, only a few universities and departments with limited experimental resources worked on nuclear research.

Illustration by The Geostrata

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the Kickstarter of India’s nuclear efforts, understood the importance of laying down a strong foundation for nuclear power in India. He impressed upon the immediate requirement of India’s nuclear program by the Prime Minister of India Jawahar Lal Nehru. He mentioned that the “development of atomic energy for power production must be pushed forward with the greatest urgency, using our own resources and competence.”

In 1954, Homi J. Bhabha tabled India’s 3-stage nuclear program at the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held in Geneva in 1955, which would sustain India’s energy needs for a very long period and assist India in achieving energy independence. India had limited Uranium reserves and depended on imports to fuel its power plants. Uranium is a key element in Nuclear fission (Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei to generate immense heat and energy.) 

India is rich in Thorium reserves, accounting for 25% of the world’s total reserves. It is one of the best substitutes for Uranium due to its abundance and energy-generating capability.

However, Thorium-232 is not a fissile material but a fissionable one. While both materials can undergo fission, fissile materials can sustain chain reaction when struck by a low energy neutron whereas fissionable materials require fast neutrons and may not undergo chain reaction. Thus thorium-232 needs to undergo nuclear reactions to produce Uranium-233, a fissile material that can be burned as a fuel to produce heat and energy. It is better than the conventional Uranium-235 due to its ability to generate more fissile material with the help of water-cooled or molten-salt reactors.

The first phase of India’s nuclear program employed Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) fueled by natural uranium to produce electricity and while producing plutonium-239 as a by-product. In 1969, India’s first Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), the 40 MW Tarapur Atomic Power Station was commissioned, marking the beginning of Stage 1 of the Indian nuclear power program. India rightly calculated that it would be easier to construct the heavy water production facilities than to spend on the Uranium enrichment facilities because heavy water reactors can operate using natural uranium without the need of extensive enrichment, thereby reducing dependency on imported enriched uranium and associated technology constraints.

The establishment of the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (later renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) in 1954 marked the beginning of increased investments in atomic energy and  efforts for international scientific collaboration. Canada offered assistance in the CIRUS reactor and the U.S. provided heavy water for the reactor. The agreement specified the fissile materials generated should be used only for peaceful purposes. However, the disagreement over the Himalayan border in 1962 between India and China and the inability of the West and Soviet Union to assist India during the 1962 India-China war heightened the need for a nuclear deterrence.

China’s testing of its first atomic bomb in 1964 marked another setback for India. Moreover, in 1968 India refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, declaring it discriminatory, while China became one of the world’s five first ‘nuclear-weapon states’ (states that possess today a combined total of about 12512 warheads), allowing the retention of their nuclear arsenal. India was disgusted by excessive Western interference, seeking to influence India’s freedom of action and preventing it from further developing its nuclear capabilities by imposing restrictions on technologies and materials needed for nuclear energy and weapons development. In 1974, defying all odds, it successfully tested its first plutonium implosion device, formally known as Pokhran 1, and informally referred to as “Smiling Buddha”.

The refusal to sign the non-proliferation treaty and withdrawal of the CIRUS reactor by Canada after India’s nuclear test was deemed a direct contravention of the signed agreement, excluded India from the nuclear power industry for 34 years until the US-India civil nuclear peace deal of 2008 was signed. The isolation period resulted in uranium exploration and mining through fuel fabrication, heavy water production, reactor design and construction, reprocessing of used fuel, and waste management. The US-India Nuclear deal in 2008 made India eligible to use U.S. nuclear technology, including materials and equipment that could enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. It would also receive imported fuel for its nuclear reactors.

Additionally, to further expand India’s nuclear power generation capacity and to achieve a closed nuclear fuel cycle, the construction of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), developed by the NPCIL using the two 1,000 megawatts (MW) pressurised water reactor (PWR) units based on Russian technology is expected to start operating on full capacity by 2027.

India has entered the second phase of the nuclear program after initiating its first homegrown “fast breeder reactor” in Tamil Nadu. The plutonium from the spent fuel of the Pressurised Heavy-Water Reactor is used in Fast Breeder Reactors. In a nuclear reactor, the fuel assemblies comprise fuel rods that contain fissile material, such as enriched uranium or plutonium, which undergoes nuclear fission to produce heat.

A fast breeder reactor is designed to create more fissile material than it consumes during operation and the process is called breeding.

This prototype has a capacity of 500 Megawatts of electricity (MWe).The Government of India has granted “administrative and financial sanctions” for building 10 more nuclear power plants with 700 MW- Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors in Haryana, Karnataka,  Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. The number of India’s nuclear reactors after completion of ongoing projects is expected to rise to above 50.

NPCIL is also setting up hydrogen power plants at Rawatbhata (Rajasthan) and Tarapur (Maharashtra) sites to generate electricity with the sole purpose of producing clean hydrogen while the NTPC is considering modernising small modular reactors into decommissioned coal plants to generate clean energy and decarbonise the industries. This shift would redefine the entire energy landscape of India.

India has started its preparation for the third stage of the nuclear program which involves the utilisation of thorium-based reactors to achieve a sustainable closed fuel cycle. The design of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors has improved progressively focusing more on safety and taking into consideration both the national and international experiences which led to the creation of an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor by BARC, to generate 60% of its power from thorium contributing to India’s third-stage of the program for thorium-based power production.

The Indian Molten Salt Breeder Reactor serves as a platform for burning thorium in India’s 3rd stage of the nuclear power program.

IMSBR utilises continuously circulating molten fluid salt as a fuel, allowing for online reprocessing and extraction of Protactinium-233, which is crucial for breeding Uranium-233. This system reduces Uranium-233 requirements and increases deployment potential. Furthermore, BARC is undertaking some technologies required by these reactors for energy conservation.

Currently, India produces about 6.7 GW of power from nuclear fuel from its 22 nuclear power plants, effectively contributing 1.8% to the total energy mix. This is way lower than the target set by the Department of Atomic Energy of 22.5 GW by 2031. India is dependent on its imports of not just oil and gas, but also critical raw materials used for producing solar panels and other renewable energy technologies. India must develop its nuclear power plants run by the thorium reserve that is available in abundance.

The Indian government needs to fast-track its nuclear program by investing in cost-effective technologies, cutting down red tape in approvals, and streamlining land reforms. A competitive domestic nuclear energy sector is key to India’s energy security.

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BY JYOTIKA & AAKSHI

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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