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Posted on 07/19/2011 2:33:16 AM PDT by coldphoenix
India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh may have one of the largest reserves of uranium in the world, the country's chief nuclear officer says.
Studies show Tummalapalle in Kadapa district has a reserve of 150,000 tonnes of the mineral, Atomic Energy Commission chief S Banerjee said.
India has estimated reserves of about 175,000 tonnes of uranium.
Analysts say the new reserves would still not be sufficient to meet India's growing nuclear energy needs.
Mr Banerjee said that studies at Tummalapalle have shown that the area "had a confirmed reserve of 49,000 tonnes and recent surveys indicate that this figure could go up even threefold" and become one of the world's largest uranium reserves.
The uranium deposits in the area appeared to be spread over 35km (21 miles), he said, adding that exploration work was going on in the area.
Mr Banerjee said the new findings were a "major development", but India's own uranium reserves would still fall short of meeting its nuclear energy needs.
"The new findings would only augment the indigenous supply of uranium. There would still be a significant gap. We would still have to import," he was quoted as saying by The Hindu newspaper.
India is planning to set up some 30 reactors over as many years and get a quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy by 2050.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
What, and give up the energy source of the century....windmills?/s
That explains why some experts predict that India will become the world power of the last half of this century instead of China!!!
It’s called Pakistani Excedrin Headache #1
It's because there are a lot of very, very powerful people making a very, very large amount of money selling fossil fuels to Americans, and they fervently want Americans to continue fearing and opposing nuclear power.
In 1987, nuclear electricity in the US displaced 260 million barrels of oil, 1200 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 90 million tons of coal that one year alone. And that's a lot of lost profits for fossil-fuel pushers.
First India hit upon $30 billion dollar Fort Knox style treasure vault and now 175,000 tonnes of uranium deposit. Seems like its the windfall season before the monsoon.
No need to waste the urainum, the Plutonium core will become quite valuable for H-Bombs. Much smaller and easier to mail to your neighbors.
“If they use breeder reactors, they’ll get 5x to 10x more energy out of the uranium.
Those are BANNED by the International Atomic Authorities! Too easy to produce bomb-grade fuel! But, has India explored any H-bomb options? China has developed them. I do not think Pakistan has, tho.
great.... right in the middle of the area most infested with Naxalites , which the Indian Gov persistently refuses to exterminate ,
stay tuned for more on this one ....
And the Naxalites, are, in turn, linked to China. China and India have been at the brink of war before, and could be again.
No wonder China is cultivating Pakistan, as well.
If there’ll be WW III in the near future it’ll be China vs. India. With a short glimpse on our debt i can say without doubt: The US of A has economically failed as the USS of R. They failed sooner, we failed later.
I don’t think they are bound by IAE because they are not signatories to NPT.
All cynicism aside, if we had the sanity to fully exploit nuclear power (current tech and LFTR) for our electricity, if NO part of the U.S. electrical grid were run off of hydrocarbon fuels, I wonder how far we’d see the price of gasoline fall owing to the reduction in fuel gas, fuel oil and NatGas consumption in the power generating sector.
“and they fervently want Americans to continue fearing and opposing nuclear power. “
Teachers and their unions are a part of the program to keep Americans afraid of nuclear power.
I have noticed that the Greens howl loudest over any real attempt to get away from foreign oil.
Little do they know their financial backing often comes from fossil fuel interests. Like this whole "clean natural gas" business - the more thoroughly kneecapped coal and nuclear are, the more natural gas they can $ell.
Actually most “richest” families in India are from the “Vaishna” caste which ranks 3rd in order behind Brahman’s & Kshatriya’s.
and the lowest and 4th ranked caste of course are the Untouchables.
It sounds as if Thorium waste could also be contained in thick concrete drums and dropped into the deep ocean. It would lost most radioactivity before the concrete would break down.
On a separate note India has a tremendous resource in Solar energy. I was reading several year ago how merely one or two solar panels per house were changing village life. Unfortunately the demand became so great in Germany which has been subsidizing solar with “feed in tariffs” that it was becoming too expensive for Indians to use. I hope that thin film solar is developed rapidly for widespread use everywhere.
I believe India is using thorium the more conventional way currently. If they switch to the newer LFTR designs they will be sitting pretty. They could use the energy (we all could).
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