The 500-MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor in Kalpakkam, which is an important milestone for the country’s nuclear power programme, has failed to meet several deadlines. One hopes that it sees the light of the day soon
India’s Department of Atomic Energy and Pakistan’s military ruler Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq have something in common. General Zia, after deposing the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977, declared martial law and appointed himself as the Chief Martial law Administrator. Though Zia had told the country that he would hold democratic election within months, it did not materialise. Whenever there was pressure from the international community, for holding elections, Zia would declare that he would hold the election within two months. But the elections never materialised as long as Zia was around. One of the popular anecdotes those days was about Zia’s assurances about holding elections in Pakistan. His official designation — Chief Martial law Administrator — ended up as ‘Cancel My last Announcement’!
The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is also entangled in a Chief Martial law Administrator syndrome because of the 500MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) coming up at Kalpakkam, 70km north of Chennai. The work for the reactor began in 2004 and it was declared by top nuclear scientists that the reactor would become critical by 2010. When a nuclear reactor is ready for generating power, it is said that the reactor has become critical. Conventional nuclear reactors in India are pressurised heavy-water reactor. The fuel used in these reactors is enriched uranium. Since India does not have sufficient stock of enriched uranium, we are dependent on countries like Russia and France, which sell us enriched uranium at exorbitant rates.
The Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) uses an oxide of plutonium and uranium as fuel. The advantage of the FBR is that the fuel used to operate the reactor gets converted into more fuel. In other words, these reactors breed more fuel than what they consume. This means that the spent fuel from one reactor could be used to power another reactor.
In May 2005, when the raft of the FBR was completed (raft is the platform on which the reactor stands), Baldev Raj, the then director of the Indira Gandhi Centre For Atomic Research, Kalpakkam and Prabhat Kumar, project director FBR, told the media that the reactor would be fully operational by 2010. This was widely reported in all newspapers and TV channels.
The authorities of IGCAR and the Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam limited (Bhavani), which is in charge of setting FBRs all over India, kept the country posted about all developments. The proposal was to simultaneously launch works of the second and third FBR at Kalpakkam itself.
The commissioning of the reactor vault in 2007 and the installation of the giant reactor vessel made of special steel into the vault in 2009, were celebrated with gaiety. I remember of touching the reactor vessel as it was lowered into the vault because once it was set up in the vault, outsiders will never be able to touch it. The office room of SC Chetal, the master brain behind the designing of the fast breeder reactor looked like a war room about which we read in newspapers. Thousands of engineering drawing, heated discussions and brain storming sessions between engineers, scientists and metallurgists. These were daily routines at Kalpakkam.
P Chellapandi, a mechanical engineer with doctorate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, came out with a path-breaking innovation in 2009. His team made the FBR resistant to earthquake. Chellapandi said no earthquakes measuring up to nine in the Richter scale could harm the reactor as it would switch off automatically in the eventuality of high intensity earthquakes.
The deadline was modified to 2011. Since then, Raj retired as IGCAR director and Chetal took over. However, nothing happened. In 2014, there was an announcement by the then chairman, DAE that the FBR would be commissioned by September 2014. But there is no sign of the FBR coming alive even in 2016. Raj said that power generated from the FBR could be sold at Rs 2.50 per unit. The total cost of the 500MW reactor was estimated at Rs 3,500 crore. Now it has been revised to Rs 5,600 crore. This means that power from FBR would cost more.
A reactor which was expected to yield power to the national grid at least by 2011, is still in a state of limbo. If one was to go by the words of Raj, Kalpakkam would have housed four FBRs by 2017 and the country would have been richer by 2,000MW. But that target remains a mirage only. In 2005, India’s nuclear scientists had claimed that the country was a global leader in FBR technology. It is about the experience gained by nuclear scientists in operating a fast breeder test reactor for 25 years. Hence, it is not lack of experience or expertise which has slowed the country’s ambitious FBR programme.
With the signing of the India-US nuclear deal, the FBR took a backstage as the US wanted to dump as many nuclear reactors as possible in India. last heard, the Minister in charge of Atomic Energy Jitendra Singh told the Parliament that the FBR would be commissioned by September 2017. Will it too end up as CMlAIJ The winner is, of course is the US.