Anil Kakodkar: Nuclear Power Should be Scaled Up

Gapur site has been kept down for so long, yes now how can you keep a site down for so long? These are all important assets, welcome to the essentials at Strat News global. I'm Suria Gangadin, we have. you have with us today Dr. Anil Kakodkar from the chairman of the atomic energy commission, uh, Dr. Kakar, first of all, welcome to the gist and I'm glad to have you. We're going to talk to you about the fast breeder reactor and we're also, um, but to start with, the head of Russia's atomic energy agency was in town and he visited the reactors that are being built in Tamilnad and there were some talks about a thermo

nuclear

reactor and India participating in it.

Could you give us something about this? Well, I am. I am not aware of or anticipating the specific discussion that might have taken place, but Fusion Energy is obviously the next energy frontier for humanity and therefore there have been global efforts to develop Fusion Energy technology for a long time and it is possible Let him know that there is an international experimental thermo

nuclear

reactor which is a major international effort in which countries like the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea and, of course, India, we are all more or less equal partners. and, as part of, that. uh, global effort, different countries are making their own contributions, both in kind by manufacturing components for the iter and the assembly work that is being carried out in kadash uh, and that is a project that is ongoing and everyone the part countries with which they are collaborating.

Meanwhile, related technologies for both magnetic confinement and inertial confinement have advanced further, so there are more opportunities to make this technology simpler, cheaper and more efficient, so they are being developed. various designs. of that, but I think fusion energy is still far beyond the net zero goal, which is an immediate existential crisis, so addressing that existential crisis has to be based on nuclear fisheries and that's why there are efforts in fishing energy. both thermal reactors and breeder reactors, so in reference to the thermonuclear reactor, is there something that we already have or are planning to build?

What is the future? To the extent that the local effort is going well, there is a very active program for fusion development. technology that essentially follows the magnetic confinement route, we have an Institute called Institute for Plasma Research in Gandhi Nagar where they have a small tokomak that has been running for decades and recently they also built a larger tokomak that can hold plasmas in steady state for more than a thousand seconds, so experiments are being done there, but to do a practical release of Fusion Energy requires much larger setups and iter is one of those things that, as I said before, India is collaborating on along with other countries, but at the component level, of course, there are several pieces of development underway, but we have not set up a fusion energy demonstration project as it was so far, in fact, no other country has as well. fact, although many countries may be more advanced than us, MH, so let's go to the fast breeder reactor.

We have been on this project for many years and the prototype reactor is now. At what stage will you generate electricity? What is it for? For energy generation. To demonstrate the technology we have. We have been pursuing the development of Fastb. reactor uh for a long time at the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, in fact, the primary mandate of that center is to develop fast reactor technology. They already have a 40 megawatt fast breeder test reactor up and running, and many experiments have been done using carbide fuel. Oxide fuel, so that is a platform for the development of technologies.

The Indira Gandhi Center also worked on the design of a 500 megawatt Bder fast reactor prototype which is being built by a public sector company called Bhavini and the construction of the reactor is complete. Recently, the fuel loading in that reactor started, the honorable Prime Minister was personally there to witness the first fuel loading and now after the fear of loading itself is a process that may take a few months and then it will go through the first criticality. followed by several experiments to understand the characteristics of the reactor and confirm that they are in accordance with the design and then the

power

will be increased and then it will start generating electricity.

His goal is to generate 500 megawatts of electricity, so what's the difference between this fast beer reactor? and those that are already working well, the difference is in terms of the neutron energy at which the nuclear reactions take place. What we are running and we have a large number of such reactors, they are all thermal reactors, so the neutron, eh. the energy is in the thermal spectrum, whereas in PBRs or fast beer reactors they are in the fast neutron spectrum, so the neutron energy is much higher and as a result, the characteristics of uh, already You know, in terms of nuclear material yield. archival materials as well as fertile material, there is a significant difference, the main difference is that while thermal reactors are a net consumer of archival material, although they also convert some of the fertile materials into archival material, but On a net basis, it is a consumer of footage, while the fast bid reactor, as I said, also consume both the footage and the fertile materials, but it is a net player in the sense that it produces more footage. of archives than you consume and that's important to us because We need to grow this, our platform, the capacity of you know, ultimately, we have to go to the thorium and the thorium we have to convert it to an archive material.

Thorium by itself is not an archive and to be able to do so we need a large capacity for such reproduction. reproduction of uranium 233 from thorium, so it is important that you need breeder reactors where you multiply the stock and, when the capacity is considerable, use that platform or those platforms to convert the thorium to uranium 233 and go to the third stage, which is the The ultimate is to use thorium on a scale and at a level that meets the energy needs of developed India, the viasit bat, so this is the important part MH, so by footage you mean more plutonium , produces more plutonium, well, it depends on What are the Breeders composed of the mbtr and the fastb reactor prototype?

They are fed uranium 238 as fertile material and plutonium as material and then consumes plutonium but produces more plutonium, while at a much later stage once. If you have increased this capacity, you would have some kind of thorium as a fertile material and you will convert the thorium into uranium 233, which is the file material, and then in the third stage we can set up reactors that are essentially thorium, uranium 233 and then we can continue to meet India's energy requirements, that's the strategy, so getting here has been a long journey in terms of the challenges of operating this reactor and the problems to overcome, what would you have to say about that well?

Clearly, this is a difficult technology. India is the only second operating country in the world. There are other countries that have stopped their program, but with a large reactor like the PBR of 500 megawatts we will be the only second country in the world. es Russia Russia has a 600 megawatt fast Builder reactor and an 800 megawatt fast reactor and we will be second, so it is a difficult technology, but it is very important for us and it is important for us because as we move forward, number one we have to decarbonize . our energy system today relies heavily on fossil energy tomorrow it has to rely heavily on nuclear energy because that is the main important source, particularly if you want to meet the increased requirements, you know the current level of energy use, maybe you can Let's say that renewable energy could meet the energy requirements at the current level and meet the greening goal or, more or less, move towards a transition to clean energy, but when it comes to meeting the energy requirements of a viasit bar, you know a bat where the quality of life of our people is comparable to that of people in advanced countries, then energy is needed, which is, I would say, between three and a half to four times more than what we consume currently and that is not possible without resorting to nuclear energy and uh, in the Indian context, that is simply not possible without resorting to thorium because we do not have that much uranium in our Landmark, we have some uranium and that two is very poor, while that we are one of the largest we have. one of the largest thorium resources in the world, so know that we are talking about a time when India will develop and will need energy supplies to meet its needs and these are likely to be comparable to global energy demands at that time. moment, so energy security at that moment is going to be a crucial issue.

Today we are importing most of our energy. All hydrocarbons are imported. Much of the coal is imported uranium. We also import now. All this has to change as we move forward because energy security will become a crucial issue. It is a crucial issue and fortunately we have these thorium resources so we have to develop this technology to meet our requirements and please note there is no other parallel anywhere in the world because I am saying that fast reactors can also work because whatever it is. I am saying that the same thing happens with thorium with uranium, what we are doing with P too and that there are greater uranium resources in other countries, so they can look for rapid construction technology with P-type fast reactors with uranium and plutonium, but we will. they have to graduate to breeder reactors that could be thermal and that could be fast because thorium works in both domains and reproduces and, but they have to be based primarily on thorium, which is the third stage of our program and the second stage pfbr is a Part of the beginning of the second stage is required to launch India into the third state, so that is the way we are progressing.

You mentioned earlier about the difficult technologies that the fast breeder reactor requires. Is it true that many of these technologies are still available? It is developing as we go, yes, in fact, the point is that I mentioned the second stage, but today we are talking about p being an oxide fuel, yes, we may have to build more reactors of this type because No. the technology matures in just one unit, you know, let the technology mature, but we will also see today the growth of fast reactors that we can sustain because we can feed fuel from the first stage, this spin fuel that comes out of the first stage, yes , but the reactor fast.

It's actually an energy producer as well as a fuel producer, that's how it reproduces. So eventually we will have to go to fast breeder reactors where the breeding gain is much higher so that their multiplication can happen much faster and therefore instead of the oxide fuel we use. Currently we may have to turn to metal fuel, for example, it is still uranium plutonium, but metal fuel, and that is a developing technology, so we have to move to that, along with that, we will move to fuel recycling. The technologies will also, like PAB, require rust. fuel recycling which will require metal fuel recycling so we will have to do that and then we will have to develop technologies for thorium reactors which could be a molten salt reactor for example so this is a huge technological challenge but uh, I present and argue that this is the only way to move forward, you know, we won't have the energy to Matter for a period of time, today we can do it so we can build, but for a period of time we won't have the energy to Matter, if at all. we have it, you know, because as I said, India's energy needs would be comparable to global needs and the world will struggle, so energy security will be a big issue, so I think if there are energy resources available in the Indian landmass. we must develop all technologies to be able to make use of the national resource, but clearly it is a long and long development, so are the problems with recycling uranium 233.

Well, there are problems in all technologies, for example, we have mastered the issue of recycling. fuel coming from thermal reactors, this is how we are building the fast accelerator reactor, now uranium 233 again has special characteristics, so now you can call it problems because it has uranium 232, another ISO that has productsharsh gamma emitters, so there are challenges, but look, these are Technologies that need to be managed remotely. These are Technologies that you know you don't process in the same way as the current way of practicing these Technologies and in fact they exist in the Department of Atomic Energy.

Work is being done to address these issues and therefore the answer is that there are problems that need to be overcome, but there are also great advantages. The big advantages are, for example, thorium, which can give you a much higher burn in a single cycle. we can get much higher energy even in the thermal spectrum, so we can make use of the thorium we can use because the fuel cycle is actually proliferation resistant, so no one will have that worry. Thorium gives you advantages because you know what you're talking about. There are problems. I will say that the thorium matrix is ​​chemically inert or very stable, so with respect to handling spent fuel, thorium fuel is a much safer way to deal with the spin field, although dissolving it is difficult, so You know whether it is a problem or an advantage depends on how you look at it and how you find the solutions, and I think that in India we have scientific capacity, people have first and feel the work at proof of concept level in all these areas, The problem is, you know, scale. implement it and make this technology industrial, but many of these things we have done, for example, the first stage reprocessing is completely in the industrial domain.

Now we also separate the actinides, which is a major problem globally, but we can do it and we can make sure that the radiotoxicity of spinning fuel or nuclear waste, particularly for the first stage, is nothing more than a uranium mine during a period of 3,400 years, so the West talks about fuel consumption as a big problem and it is an unsolved problem for them it is no longer an unsolved problem for India, so you know if something is a problem. or it is not a problem, it depends on the level of technological process you have, it has progressed and there are challenges, but I think that is what research and development is about.

Looking at our nuclear energy program, sir, the civil nuclear energy program, is it very slow? um uh you know, I mean we have established objectives that we have not been able to meet what is the problem here yes, you are right, look, the point is, uh, one is developing technologies, the so-called atbar bat, now that in atomic energy it was a mandate given by Dr. Bhaba right at the beginning of atomic energy and all these technologies have been developed despite the technology denial regime imposed by the international community and fortunately now we are not 100% but largely integrated into International Trade.

Nuclear trade, so one now in the process, of course, the implementation of projects has been delayed, there is and that is a fact, yes, but I think that dealing with these problems requires a national program requires a national policy. The point is a set of scientists. of research professionals can help the country develop technology by scaling it up, demonstrating that it is commercially sound, but the rollout of a large program also involves, for example, an investment, ensuring that industries are continually busy, not He can ask an industry to make a component for a reactor, then he says to wait two years and then he says to manufacture a component for another reactor again, but he says that the industry has to mobilize and cannot maintain its optimal resources, so it is necessary.

Now, fortunately, the government has talked about building, for example, thermal

power

plants. 700 megawatt phw reactor in fleet mode, that is a step in the right direction, there is also the question of financing, you know, no, we have given so many concessions to renewable energy, why can't we give similar concessions to the nuclear energy, nuclear energy Of course, in fact, its footprint is comparable to that of renewable energy, in some cases, in fact, its footprint is smaller than that of some of the renewable energies, so why not Can we give, for example, green bonds, for example, mandatory state, for example, just as we have done? renewable energy purchase obligation Why can't we have a nuclear energy purchase obligation?

Why can't we create demand in the market? I think I agree with you that while implementation has been challenging and we need to improve, we surely need to improve, but it's not. Not that that's the only thing it's delaying, and of course I'd go a step further. The scale at which we need to expand nuclear power is so large that it can't be done just on the basis of a single nuclear power corporation that we probably require multiple NPCs. We need you to know several public sector units that also have a reasonably effective scope. They have to join together.

They can do it according to the current atomic energy law. It can be done by psus, so it requires it. According to me we

should

have 8. 10 organizations building nuclear power capacity and that is the way forward because the technology for phwr has been proven to be robust and has been accepted and recognized as the best globally in many ways. Kaa one unit got a world award for the longest uninterrupted operation in one stage So I guess what I'm saying is that you need a national approach and not some kind of peace, not a kind of stop and go program, so The last question we have signed civil nuclear agreements with several countries to build their own reactors here, the French, even the Americans, but nothing happened well.

I don't feel very comfortable with that either. I would have liked that at this moment, like the Kuran Kulum reactors, two reactors are operating, two reactors are in an advanced stage of construction and two more reactors are under construction. I would have really liked to see 6 AP miles under construction and six epr under construction. Yes, even at that time I had told everyone that the condition that has to be fulfilled is that whatever we establish in the country, uh, it must be economically viable in Indian conditions, we don't want rounds to happen here, yes, in nuclear energy, so now, if a reactor where value has been added in an industrialized economy, the cost of the Western economy is bound to be higher, so the capital cost you already know, and this is true for any high technology, not just nuclear high technology, it does so with a value of 100%.

Edition in India, you can build it for half the cost or maybe even cheaper. H, the same is happening for Foreign suppliers must make their pricing structure comparable in cost of capital to Indian reactors. Now they have to add value in the country, as long as they know it, unless these suppliers come to terms with that fact. Yes, this is still a challenge and that is at the root of this problem, so they have to add 100% value in the country because they know that we have maintained, for example, that the Jaitapur site has been down for so long. time, yes, yes, how can you keep a site down for a long time?

For so long, these are all important assets, yes, so this is an important thing and unless the internal value added is close to 100%, I think imported systems will not move forward, although as long as they are economically viable and competitive. I think we welcome everyone at Open Arms, no problem Dr. Kakar, at the end of our time, it was lovely to talk to you and lots of information in perspective, thank you very much sir, and I hope that the atomic energy program works. advance at a faster pace and hoping for the best thank you very much sir thank you very much that is all we have for you in this edition of Gist thank you very much goodbye