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India Announces Design Completion of Its Thorium-fueled Nuclear Reactor
17 February 2014
(EIRNS)—The chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. R.K. Sinha, has announced design completion of its long-sought Thorium-fueled nuclear reactor, known as the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The AHWR is slated to form the third stage in India’s three-stage fuel-cycle plan. It is supposed to be built starting with a 300-MW prototype in 2016, and the first megawatt of electricity would be generated by 2025. "To generate a single megawatt of electricity from this world’s first thorium based reactor, it would take at least 7-8 years," said Sinha. The AHWR will be fueled by a mix of uranium-233 and plutonium — which will be converted from thorium by previously deployed and domestically designed fast breeder reactors. India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), to be operational this year, will have a capacity of 500 MW. It will be one of only three commercial-sized sodium-cooled fast operational reactors in the world when complete. The Russian BN-800, which is also sodium-cooled, is reported to be scheduled for commissioning at the end of 2014. The BN-800’s predecessor, the BN-600 at Beloyarsk, has a capacity of 600MW. Pointing out that the Thorium-fueled reactor will be the most secured and safest reactor, Sinha said such reactors could be set up within populated cities, like Mumbai or Delhi. The latest AHWR design incorporates several passive safety features. These include: Core heat removal through natural circulation; direct injection of emergency core coolant system (ECCS) water in fuel; and the availability of a large inventory of borated water in an overhead gravity-driven water pool (GDWP) to facilitate sustenance of core decay heat removal. The emergency core cooling system (ECCS) injection and containment cooling in the AHWR can act without invoking any active systems or operator action. [RMA] |
