Indian method to produce nuclear power

     New Delhi: Indian atomic scientists have discovered a new method to produce nuclear power in which the reactor would run on thorium - available in plenty in our country - and a small amount of "seed" plutonium. While India is yet to get a green signal from the United States on supplies of uranium fuel, the scientists of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai have evolved a reactor called 'A Thorium Breeder Reactor' (ATBR) which does not rely on natural or enriched uranium, said a paper published in the journal 'Current Science'.

    "The ATBR combines the merits of existing heavy water and light water reactor technologies and is tailor-made for large scale utilisation of thorium," BARC Physicists V Jagannathan and Uma Pal announced in a paper. The primarily thorium loaded core of ATBR, when initially charged with 2.2 tonnes of reactor grade plutonium "is capable of delivering incessant energy of 600 MW for two years with no refuelling and with no significant mechanical control manoeuvres," the journal reported the physicists as saying. The "Seed" plutonium can be recovered from spent fuel accumulating over the years in the country. "The plutonium fissile seed remains conserved for a long duration of six years (three fuel cycles) due to its location in the fuel cluster," the journal reported. The unique concept used in ATBR is that the thorium oxide fuel rods are loaded in specially designed "flux trap" or fissile breeding zones. The physicist said that they have been able to prolong the nuclear energy extraction process in this reactor, since the fissile atoms consumed are replenished with new fissile atoms in the same reactor during the same fuel cycle. "This would require a delicate balance of the fissile depletion and production rates at all times," they said. This particular feature does not exist in the present-day power reactors since the fissile depletion is normally at a much higher rate than the rate of production of new ones. The journal further said that after the detailed engineering design and demonstrative trials, the safe and economic ATBR idea "can play a key role in harnessing the energy from the large deposits of thorium in India".

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