Posted on 08/25/2005 4:11:34 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI: India unveiled before the international community on Thursday, its revolutionary design of a 'Thorium breeder reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'
Designed by scientists of the Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world.
Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as 'seed' to ignite the reactor core initially.
Eventually, the ATBR can run entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment).
BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented at the week-long 'international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems' in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years.
According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from 'seed' rods, converts 1,100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. This diffrential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder.
The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect 'balance' between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years.
This does not happen in the present day power reactors because fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones.
BARC scientists say that the ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of the future reactor programme.
They say that long fuel cycle length of two years with no external absorber management or control manoeuvres "does not exist in any operating reactor."
The ATBR annually requires 2.2 tonnes of plutonium as 'seed'. Although India has facilities to recover plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel, it requires plutonium for its Fast Breeder Reactor programme as well. Nuclear analysts say that it may be possible for India to obtain plutonium from friendly countries wanting to dismantle their weapons or dispose of their stockpiled plutonium.
I've always wondered why they can't harness all forms of radioactivity to generate power. That way even nuclear waste could be used to power a generator.
What am I missing here that the U.S. power industry and the US government have not been on top of this "safe" nuclear power development?
Energy from radioactive decay is very low (it's derived from the weak nuclear force). It's generally been used to power things like spacecraft that need a tiny source of energy for a long time.
Fission on the other hand produces a large amount of energy (derived from the strong nuclear force). For fission you need to use fissile or fertile elements like uranium, thorium, and plutonium.
The difference in energy produced by these two means is tremendous. In fact, even newer spacecraft will be using fission.
The US nuclear community has known about this kind of reactor for a while. In fact, many years ago, the US tested plants that burned thorium. The problem in the US is not technological, but economic and regulatory.
I suspected it was more regulatory than economics. As with coal vs natural gas and oil, there is always an economic tipping point.
One word: BHOPAL
One word: BHOPAL
India, as I have said elsewhere, is, if you'll pardon the sweeping generalization on so many levels, God's gift to America. And I'm not just talking about the women.
but you said it twice. anyway, that was in the dark ages for India. And, if not very much mistaken, didn't Union Carbide operate that place?
It's the regulatory framework that makes the economics of nuclear plants so undesirable. You gotta jump through a lot more hoops to build a nuclear plant than a coal or natural gas place. As a result, at this point uranium plants are still not cheaper than coal. These thorium plants would probably cost a lot more than uranium plants -- the advantage is that it destroys weapons-grade plutonium and produces waste that is very difficult to turn into a nuclear weapon. Since it's proliferation concerns and not economics driving the fuel in this plant, I suspect it's heavily subsidized by the Indian government.
Union Carbide OWNED the plant, and provided some management. Far and away the majority of personnel were locals, including the guys who "pulled the wrong lever".
All development int he US has been strictly theoretical since the feds have made building a nuke reactor prohibitively expensive through impossible to meet standards.
i see. so, ownership had no culpability and responsibility to ensure that their employees knew which levers to pull? Sort of like Delta putting people in the cockpit who don't which buttons to push?
"The ABTR needs 2.2 tonnes of plutonium each year."
Sounds like a great future energy source to export around the world. NOT.
Exactly.
It consumes 2.2 tonnes of plutonium, not produces. Besides, what can anyone do about India making the bomb?
"One word: BHOPAL"
Two words: Union Carbide!
(Remember the American Company "Union Carbide"?)LOL!
Oh bull! Blame it on the "locals" pulling the lever!
The every piece of report on Bhopal gas leak ever published clearly indictes the top level management for blatantly flouting local laws and safty standards.
Union Carbide operated it, technically, but the place was on-hands managed by Indians. Not unlike Homer Simpson, a couple of engineers were "sleeping at the wheel" when the cyanide leak occurred and a chain reaction of miscommunication and the lack of emergency stopgaps created that disaster. Essentially, oversight was shoddy and a lot of people died for it.
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