India's 1'st Commercial Fast Breeder Reactor 96% complete
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Status of fast Breeder Reactor in India
Wonderful presentation by Director IGCAR
See PPT in PDF format for informative graphs, sketches and pictures
http://www.jaea.go.jp/04/turuga/fr_seminar/materials/presentation_material_india.pdf
Wonderful presentation by Director IGCAR
See PPT in PDF format for informative graphs, sketches and pictures
http://www.jaea.go.jp/04/turuga/fr_seminar/materials/presentation_material_india.pdf
“Let us celebrate the success of our nuclear power development scientists and engineers and their partners in the industry for making the dream of fast breeder reactor a reality for the nation, which will lead the country towards total energy security within the next two decades. Let us empower the nation with quality power.”
Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
2004-Technology Day Speech, AIR
FAST BREEDER PROGRAMME : AN INEVITABLE OPTION FOR ENERGY SECURITY
Dr. Baldev Raj , Director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
Fast Breeder Programme | Department of Atomic Energy
Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
2004-Technology Day Speech, AIR
FAST BREEDER PROGRAMME : AN INEVITABLE OPTION FOR ENERGY SECURITY
Dr. Baldev Raj , Director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research
Fast Breeder Programme | Department of Atomic Energy
The " jump" that the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) undertook in stepping up from the 13 MWe Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) to the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) which is under construction at Kalpakkam, near Chennai, "is a bold one," Georges Vendryes, honorary executive vice-president, French Atomic Energy Commission, has said.
http://www.igcar.ernet.in/press_releases/press19.htm
http://www.igcar.ernet.in/press_releases/press19.htm
NDTV Documentary regarding PFBR
Inside India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Programme [NDTV Report] 01 of 02 - YouTube
Inside India's Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Programme [NDTV Report] 01 of 02 - YouTube
Well ,it has dual impact on India's military nuclear programme ....by using Thorium as primary fuel ...it leaves our Uranium deposits exclusively for weapon production ....besides it generates Plutonium as "by-product " which is by far most favored "fissile material " for weapons ....
This is the reason why our fast breedervReactors are not subjected to IAEA safeguards purview ...given its strategic importance
For detail analysis please see following amazing Presentation
http://www.princeton.edu/~aglaser/talk2006_princeton.pdf
As you see as per the figures quoted in this particular presentation, India's capacity to generate weapon grade Plutonium will surge to 150 kg /year as compared to Pakistans's capacity to generate 10-15 kg /year after completion of Khushab-2 !!!
That translates to 10-15 times enhanced capacity vis a vis Pakistan !!!
And as you shall see this is based on Single FBR that is about to go critical early next year ....India plans to build 6 FBRs in near future ....that will increase the weapon grade plutonium by another 6 fold ....!!!
Weapon-Grade Plutonium Production Potential in the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor
Abstract :
India is building a 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, which is scheduled to be operational by 2010. India has refused to accept international safeguards on this facility, raising concerns that the plutonium produced in its uranium blankets might be used to make nuclear weapons. Based on neutronics calculations for a detailed three-dimensional model of the reactor, we estimate that up to 140 kg of weapon-grade plutonium could be produced with this facility each year. This article shows how India's large stockpile of separated reactor-grade plutonium from its unsafeguarded spent heavy-water reactor fuel could serve as makeup fuel to allow such diversion of the weapon-grade plutonium from the blankets of the fast breeder reactor. We describe and assess the most plausible refueling strategies for producing weapon-grade plutonium in this way.
DOI:10.1080/08929880701609154 Alexander Glasera & M. V. Ramana
Science & Global Security: The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2007 pages 85-105
That translates to 10-15 times enhanced capacity vis a vis Pakistan !!!
And as you shall see this is based on Single FBR that is about to go critical early next year ....India plans to build 6 FBRs in near future ....that will increase the weapon grade plutonium by another 6 fold ....!!!
Weapon-Grade Plutonium Production Potential in the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor
Abstract :
India is building a 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, which is scheduled to be operational by 2010. India has refused to accept international safeguards on this facility, raising concerns that the plutonium produced in its uranium blankets might be used to make nuclear weapons. Based on neutronics calculations for a detailed three-dimensional model of the reactor, we estimate that up to 140 kg of weapon-grade plutonium could be produced with this facility each year. This article shows how India's large stockpile of separated reactor-grade plutonium from its unsafeguarded spent heavy-water reactor fuel could serve as makeup fuel to allow such diversion of the weapon-grade plutonium from the blankets of the fast breeder reactor. We describe and assess the most plausible refueling strategies for producing weapon-grade plutonium in this way.
DOI:10.1080/08929880701609154 Alexander Glasera & M. V. Ramana
Science & Global Security: The Technical Basis for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation Initiatives
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2007 pages 85-105
kaykay
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woah...man thats big amount. Currently our Dhruv Reactor produce around 30 KG plutonium/year and add around 130 kg more to it once this reactor get operational. Our WGP production capacity will be increased by 5-6 times from what its today. Can't wait to get it operational.
PS: besides 5-6 more such reactors are coming by 2025-2030.
Indeed it is one of the few areas in which India is ahead of China !!!
Here is the comparison between status of Fast Breeder Reactor Programme between India and China based on World Nuclear Association report . While China is getting Russian help ....India's FBR Programme is largely Indigenous !!!
Developments in India
In India, research continues. At the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research a 40 MWt fast breeder test reactor (FBTR) has been operating since 1985. In addition, the tiny Kamini there is employed to explore the use of thorium as nuclear fuel, by breeding fissile U-233.
In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. It is expected to be operating by 2012, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX - the reactor-grade Pu being from its existing PHWRs via Purex reprocessing) and with a thorium blanket to breed fissile U-233. The plutonium content will be 21% and 27% in two different regions of the core. Initial fuel will be MOX pellets, later vibropack fuel may be used.
The PFBR will take India's ambitious thorium program to stage 2, and set the scene for eventual full utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Four more such fast reactors have been announced for construction by 2020. Initial Indian FBRs will be have mixed oxide fuel but these will be followed by metallic-fuelled ones to enable shorter doubling time.
India is also developing mixed carbide fuels for FNRs (U-Pu-C-N-O). Carbide fuel in FBTR has reached 125,000 MWd/t burn-up without failure, and has been reprocessed at pilot scale. It envisages metal fuels after 2020.
Indian figures for PHWR reactors using unenriched uranium suggest 0.3% utilization, which is contrasted with 75% utilization expected for PFBR.
Developments in China
In China, R&D on fast neutron reactors started in 1964. A 65 MWt fast neutron reactor - the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) - was designed by 2003 and built near Beijing by Russia's OKBM Afrikantov in collaboration with OKB Gidropress, NIKIET and Kurchatov Institute. It achieved first criticality in July 2010, can generate 20 MWe and was grid connected in July 2011 at 40% of power, to ramp up to 20 MWe by December. Core height is 45 cm, and it has 150 kg Pu (98 kg Pu-239). Temperature reactivity and power reactivity are both negative.
A 1000 MWe Chinese prototype fast reactor (CDFR) based on CEFR is envisaged with construction start in 2017 and commissioning as the next step in CIAE's program. This will be a 3-loop 2500 MWt pool-type, use MOX fuel with average 66 GWd/t burn-up, run at 544°C, have breeding ratio 1.2, with 316 core fuel assemblies and 255 blanket ones, and a 40-year life. This is CIAE's "project one" CDFR. It will have active and passive shutdown systems and passive decay heat removal. This may be developed into a CCFR of about the same size by 2030, using MOX + actinide or metal + actinide fuel. MOX is seen only as an interim fuel, the target arrangement is metal fuel in closed cycle.
However, in October 2009 an agreement was signed with Russia's Atomstroyexport to start pre-project and design works for a commercial nuclear power plant with two BN-800 reactors in China, referred to by CIAE as 'project 2' Chinese Demonstration Fast Reactors (CDFR) - in China, with construction to start in 2013 and commissioning 2018-19. These would be similar to the OKBM Afrikantov design being built at Beloyarsk 4 and due to start up in 2012. In contrast to the intention in Russia, these will use ceramic MOX fuel pellets. The project is expected to lead to bilateral cooperation of fuel cycles for fast reactors.
The CIAE's CDFR 1000 is to be followed by a 1200 MWe CDFBR by about 2028, conforming to Gen IV criteria. This will have U-Pu-Zr fuel with 120 GWd/t burn-up and breeding ratio of 1.5, or less with minor actinide and long-lived fission product recycle.
CIAE projections show fast reactors progressively increasing from 2020 to at least 200 GWe by 2050, and 1400 GWe by 2100.
Fast Neutron Reactors | FBR
Another reference about Impact of FBR programme over India's capability to produce weapon grade Plutonium can be found in this particular book - titled
" Pakistan's Nuclear Future : Worries Beyond War " by Henry D . sokolski
please refer to page numbers 180-200 .
Pakistan's Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War - Google Books
Echo_419
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Bhai jaan,Bhai,Paji,Buddy
Thanks itne dino so Negative news sun sun ke mood karab ho gya thaa & I am more happy bcauz in this field we are still ahead of the Chinese
Indeed we should celebrate good news ....just as we grieve bad news !!!
and this one is definitely one of the best news you can here ....when china is reeling with 65 mwt Experimental FBR reactor we are surging ahead with first commercial FBR ....As I said before we have moved from Laboratory phase ....to industrial phase !!!
Only better news would be when it actually goes critical early next year ....although loading of fuel will begin by end of this month
Cheers !!!
Date set for prototype fast breeder reactor in Tamil Nadu, India | Thorium Forum
India’s first commercial nuclear reactor designed to generate more fuel than it burns and drive the country closer towards harnessing its vast thorium reserves will become operational in September next year, a senior atomic energy official has said.
The 500MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, is intended to be a forerunner of a series of home-grown reactors that are expected to dramatically boost India’s nuclear power generation capacity over the next three decades.
“The construction of the PFBR is nearly complete,” said Rattan Kumar Sinha, chairman of the atomic energy commission on August 23.
“But as this is a new type of reactor, the regulatory processes could take a year. We expect the reactor to become operational by September 2014.”
The PFBR will generate energy through the nuclear fission of plutonium extracted from the spent fuel of India’s existing pressurised heavy water reactors. But the reactor will also generate fresh loads of fuel — fissile plutonium from uranium, or fissile uranium from thorium.
Fast breeder reactors pose far bigger technological challenges than conventional reactors. But, nuclear engineers say, fast breeders represent the second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear power programme that ultimately plans to use the thorium locked in its coastal sands.
“Thorium is like wet wood,” Sinha said, speaking at a conference on nuclear energy organised by Assocham India, an association of industry organisations. “Thorium needs to be turned into fissile uranium just as wet wood needs to be dried in a furnace.”
A blanket of thorium around the fuel inside the PFBR would be turned into fissile uranium, which can be extracted to serve as fresh nuclear fuel. The third stage reactors would use this uranium in their cores and more thorium in their blankets.
Sections of nuclear scientists believe that such a thorium-driven nuclear power programme could generate power for up to 600 years.
“But it’s not prudent to put thorium in breeder reactors ahead of time,” Sinha said. “We need to wait about 30 years while the fast breeder programme grows and then start putting thorium.”
The PFBR was preceded by a small 50MW Fast Breeder Test Reactor, set up in Kalpakkam in the 1980s. If all goes well with the PFBR, India hopes to build four more fast breeder reactors over the next two decades.
Only India, France and Russia have signalled their intention to pursue commercial fast breeder reactors, although the US, Germany, Britain, China and Japan have pursued research on fast breeder reactors.
The technology is controversial because of its complexity and challenge and concerns about its economics. Some nuclear analysts have predicted that the PFBR will not live up to its promise because of economic and safety issues.
The World Nuclear Association has said that while there has been progress on the technical front, the economics of fast breeders still depend on the value of the plutonium fuel that is bred and used, relative to the cost of fresh uranium.
But the association has also said that fast breeder technology is “important to long-term considerations of world energy sustainability”.
India’s first commercial nuclear reactor designed to generate more fuel than it burns and drive the country closer towards harnessing its vast thorium reserves will become operational in September next year, a senior atomic energy official has said.
The 500MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, is intended to be a forerunner of a series of home-grown reactors that are expected to dramatically boost India’s nuclear power generation capacity over the next three decades.
“The construction of the PFBR is nearly complete,” said Rattan Kumar Sinha, chairman of the atomic energy commission on August 23.
“But as this is a new type of reactor, the regulatory processes could take a year. We expect the reactor to become operational by September 2014.”
The PFBR will generate energy through the nuclear fission of plutonium extracted from the spent fuel of India’s existing pressurised heavy water reactors. But the reactor will also generate fresh loads of fuel — fissile plutonium from uranium, or fissile uranium from thorium.
Fast breeder reactors pose far bigger technological challenges than conventional reactors. But, nuclear engineers say, fast breeders represent the second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear power programme that ultimately plans to use the thorium locked in its coastal sands.
“Thorium is like wet wood,” Sinha said, speaking at a conference on nuclear energy organised by Assocham India, an association of industry organisations. “Thorium needs to be turned into fissile uranium just as wet wood needs to be dried in a furnace.”
A blanket of thorium around the fuel inside the PFBR would be turned into fissile uranium, which can be extracted to serve as fresh nuclear fuel. The third stage reactors would use this uranium in their cores and more thorium in their blankets.
Sections of nuclear scientists believe that such a thorium-driven nuclear power programme could generate power for up to 600 years.
“But it’s not prudent to put thorium in breeder reactors ahead of time,” Sinha said. “We need to wait about 30 years while the fast breeder programme grows and then start putting thorium.”
The PFBR was preceded by a small 50MW Fast Breeder Test Reactor, set up in Kalpakkam in the 1980s. If all goes well with the PFBR, India hopes to build four more fast breeder reactors over the next two decades.
Only India, France and Russia have signalled their intention to pursue commercial fast breeder reactors, although the US, Germany, Britain, China and Japan have pursued research on fast breeder reactors.
The technology is controversial because of its complexity and challenge and concerns about its economics. Some nuclear analysts have predicted that the PFBR will not live up to its promise because of economic and safety issues.
The World Nuclear Association has said that while there has been progress on the technical front, the economics of fast breeders still depend on the value of the plutonium fuel that is bred and used, relative to the cost of fresh uranium.
But the association has also said that fast breeder technology is “important to long-term considerations of world energy sustainability”.
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