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DAE seeks funds to replicate success story

Buoyed by the outstanding results of the fast breeder test reactor at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, the Department of Atomic Energy is seeking Rs 25 billion from the central government for developing a prototype for a 500 mw fast breeder test reactor during the ninth plan, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr R Chidambaram said on Friday.

Dr Chidambaram said in Hyderabad that the funding was being sought for technology development, even as the design for the unit was expected to be completed in the next few months. The DAE was trying to identify the critical components and the agencies needed for prototype, which would be India's first full-scale reactor in the ambitious fast breeder programme, he said.

A fast breeder provided 35 times more power than the conventional atomic power stations, he said, and added that the fast breeder test reactor at IGCAR was expected to achieve its full capacity of 15 megawatts of electricity over the next 18 months.

"We have used a partial core of carbide fuel when the fast breeder test reactor went critical on July 12, providing one mw electricity to the Tamil Nadu grid," he said. The full core would provide 40 mw thermal power, equivalent to 12 to 15 mw electricity.

Dr Chidambaram said the technical objective of the test reactor had been realised with the fast breeder test reactor going critical, as it was "one step ahead" of the French technology. The rhapsodie, the French group's technology on which the IGCAR reactor was developed, did not envisage the electricity component, which was achieved by the IGCAR reactor by upgrading the technology.

The "fuel assembly" which was cut open at the fast breeder test reactor had shown that the fuel core was "intact." The fuel critical standard of producing 32,000 mw per day was achieved, along with testing the efficacy of the advanced sodium coolant technology -- used for the first time in India; conventional atomic reactors use water as its coolant.

Saying that nuclear power was the only option to meet the country's growing power needs, he said tentatively production of 20,000 mw was being contemplated by AD 2020, which would need a capital investment of around Rs 800 billion to Rs 1000 billion.

UNI