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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 ...
That’s still a lot.
How are they doing for thorium? The newest proposed reactors burn thorium and pose much less risk of meltdown or leaks than uranium reactors.
Also #1 or #2 in Thorium reserves.
India's Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world's first reactor which uses thorium rather than depleted uranium to achieve power flattening across the reactor core. India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR).
The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2011, following which five more reactors will be constructed. Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India's new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons.
As accelerator-based systems can operate at sub-criticality they could be developed too, but that would require more research.India currently envisages meeting 30% of its electricity demand through thorium-based reactors by 2050.
IAEA report mentions that India possesses two thirds (67%) of global reserves of monazite, the primary thorium ore. The IAEA also states that recent reports have upgraded India’s thorium deposits up from approximately 300,000 tonnes to 650,000 tonnes.
By which time barefooted Americans will be struggling to coax a few kilowatts out of solar panels and preying to their lord and savior, Barak Hussein Obama.
Eureka!!!
1. India has huge reserves of thorium that could be used for these reactors.
2. China likely has large amounts of thorium stored away as part of their rare Earth mining program.
LFTR's, unlike uranium-based reactors, are extremely safe to run and best of all, the radioactive waste from a LFTR only has a half-life of around 200 years. That means the waste can be dumped into any disused salt mine or salt dome with storage costs far lower than the storage cost of radioactive waste from a uranium-based reactor.
The really good idea would be to use the thorium for domestic reactors and use the uranium on Pakistan...
If they use breeder reactors, they’ll get 5x to 10x more energy out of the uranium.
Post of the day!
We need a LFTR ping list...
LFTRs are the power source of the future. No fuel worries at all for thousands of years. That means it will remain cheap for a very long time. 7,000 tons of Thorium can power the US for one year. All of it. There is one single mine in Idaho with enough thorium to power the US for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. You can double or even quadruple the amount of energy we consume and never ever have to worry about supply.
Sounds very Star Trekky but the cool thing is that we (the US of A) built two of them already and ran them successfully for years at Oak Ridge. They even turned one of them off over the weekends! Imagine that. No more peek power worries...
Care to guess where the ChiComs got the plans for their Thorium reactors? Yep. Our archives.
There are so many overwhelming positive reasons to use them.
Here’s another point on the Thorium front — Cheap, plentiful and stable power will always be the bedrock for a successful economy. With no worries about supplies for thousands of years, our economy would grow like never before with LFTRs as the main power source.
That’ll make 2 or 3 Indian families, living in the upper cast, very rich.
Hey, it is the revenge of the sacred cows.
I really can’t understand why we’re not heavily invested in LFTRs. It just blows me away.
Now, lower caste are rich, they are in top position because of quota system and they are good in guilt tour.
By the way Priest, who belongs to upper caste were never rich.
Class war is different story.
I believe they still have some technological problems, but that doesn't mean they can't be made a national priority for research.
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