NUCLEAR POWER
: AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE
Dr.
Anil Kakodkar *
The world’s population
crossed the 6 billion mark in the year 1999. Most current estimates
suggest that around 2 billion people will be added over the next
30 years with another billion in the following 20 years. Virtually
all this increase will be in the developing countries with the
bulk in the urban areas. The core challenge for development is
to ensure availability of productive work opportunities and a
better quality of life for all these people. The quality of life
should be above a minimum threshold with equitable opportunities
for all. At present, however, inequality is widening. The average
income in the richest 20 countries is now 37 times that in the
poorest 20 and this ratio has doubled in the past 40 years. Inequalities
can give rise to conflicts and, therefore, it is necessary to
address development concerns of all nations.
Energy is the engine
for growth. It multiplies human labour and increases productivity
in agriculture, industry and services. Thus, easier access to
energy in the developing world holds the key to bridging the widening
inequality. Rapid developments in nuclear power technology in
the sixties and seventies have demonstrated practical feasibility
of large-scale role that nuclear power can play in meeting the
energy challenge. However, this deployment has largely been restricted
to the industrialized world which is by and large in a stable
mode so far as energy demand is concerned. The desperate need
for growth in energy availability exists in the developing world
because the per capita energy consumption needs to be taken to
a much higher level and also because of the growth in population
which would stabilize only when survival no longer remains an
issue and there is a general feeling about an assured, reasonable
quality of life.
As the developing
world tries to meet the energy needs of its growing population
and support its development aspirations, the global energy consumption
would double over the next three decades and will rise further
subsequently. Only power of the atom can, in principle, realize
this. Without a central role for nuclear power this could lead
to a catastrophe both in terms of sustainability of energy resources
with enhanced level of conflicts to grab the residual resources
and, even more importantly, in terms of global climate. As we
move forward in time, the crucial importance of nuclear power
would be increasingly felt not only for supporting economic growth
but also for some basic human needs such as availability of clean
air and water. In fact, the day is not far off when we would need
to view nuclear energy as not just a source of electricity but
a primary energy source which could assure our sustainable future.
Developments in science
and technology have led to the improvement in quality of human
life. Although new problems have arisen in the process, these
have in fact been solved by further developments in science and
technology. For example, today we can justifiably be proud of
increased longevity realized through emphasis on health and nutrition
programmes. The increased demand for food as a result has been
met through advances in agriculture. Looking back to the 1950s
and 1960s, it was then feared that the developing countries -
particularly China, India and Indonesia - would not be able to
feed their rapidly growing populations. Thanks to the green revolution
in agriculture, the doomsday scenarios of famine and starvation
in these, the most populous, developing countries were proved
wrong. Given the inevitable role the nuclear power is required
to play in the years to come, there is a strong need to examine
further technological solutions that need to be brought about
to overcome barriers that exist in its large- scale deployment
in the developing world.
Scenario
Looking from India’s
perspective, development of nuclear energy based on a closed cycle
approach enabling fuller use of uranium and thorium is inevitable
for development aspirations of over a billion people. The electricity
generation in the fiscal year 2002-03 was about 531 billion kWhr
from electric utilities and an additional about 127 billion kWhr
was generated by the captive power plants. On per capita basis,
this works out to 620 kWhr per year (Table 1). India’s GDP in
recent years has been increasing at 6 per cent per year. The development
aspirations of its people demand that growth at this or even at
a higher rate be sustained for a long enough time. The Centre
has taken several steps to realize the aspirations. These include
policy initiatives as well as planning and launching of projects
aimed at improving the energy, transport and water infrastructure
in the country. The examples include the ongoing project to build
a network of national highways, setting up of a task force to
prepare a blueprint for linking the major rivers in the country
to solve the problem of recurring floods in some parts and drought
elsewhere and ongoing reforms in the power sector with the Electricity
Bill - 2003 having been passed by Parliament some time ago. Several
other initiatives have been taken such as the new Telecom Policy
which has resulted in a rapid growth of telecom infrastructure
in the country. All these are steps towards achieving an average
annual growth of 8 per cent during the ongoing 10th FiveYear Plan
(April 2002 to March 2007).
In terms of electricity
generation, India would have to reach at least a modest target
of generating 5000 kWhr per year per capita. India’s population
could rise to 1.5 billion by the year 2050. This would call for
a total electricity generation of about 7500 billion kWhr per
year. This is an order of magnitude higher than the generation
in the fiscal year 2002-03 and calls for a careful examination
of all issues related to sustainability including abundance of
available energy resources, diversity of sources of energy supply
and technologies, security of supplies, self-sufficiency, security
of energy infrastructure, effect on local, regional and global
environment, health externalities and demand side management.
This situation is true for several other countries on a growth
path. At the present stage of development no single energy resource
or technology constitutes a panacea to address all issues. Therefore,
it is necessary that all low-carbon and non-carbon emitting resources
become an integral part of an energy mix – as diversified as possible
– to ensure energy security to the world during the present century.
The available sources are low carbon fossil fuels, renewables
and nuclear energy. All these will have to be subject to increased
levels of research, development, demonstration and deployment.
Let us examine the
fuel resource situation in India. Estimates by us in the Department
of Atomic Energy (DAE) and also by other agencies in the country
indicate that we will have difficulties with regard to availability
of coal by the middle of the present century. In addition, coal-based
stations are likely to pose serious problems in the future arising
out of transport of large quantities of coal across the country
and environmental problems related to disposal of ash and emission
of greenhouse and acid gases. Our oil and natural gas reserves
are very modest and we are importing very substantial quantities
of our requirements -a major part of our overall imports. Our
hydro-potential is renewable and must be exploited to the maximum.
But the exploitation of hydel resources is handicapped by issues
like displacement of people. Non-conventional sources like solar,
biomass and wind will no doubt play their useful roles. But at
the present level of technology development they can only complement
electricity generation by base load stations dependent on fossil,
hydro or nuclear plants.
Technology
Our uranium deposits
are limited, while the thorium deposits are large. To maximize
the energy potential of our available nuclear resources, a closed
fuel cycle involving reprocessing of spent fuel to recycle plutonium
and uranium-238 has to be pursued. Besides recovering valuable
fissile and fertile materials, reprocessing helps to sort out
the wastes according to their activity levels and their decay
period, thereby assisting waste disposal and minimizing environmental
impact. The development and experience in closed uranium fuel
cycle would soon need to be expanded to cover the thorium fuel
cycle to ensure long-term energy security for the country. Closed
cycle has the capability to virtually de-couple energy supply
from resource-related constraints for generations to come.
Indigenously-developed
Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and associated fuel cycle
facilities are being established to meet the current electricity
needs and fuel requirements in the future. At present, we have
12 such reactors in operation and six under construction, which
include larger indigenously-designed and developed 540 MW units
under construction at Tarapur. The designs of these reactors have
progressively evolved taking into account the needs for indigenisation,
our own operating experience, operating experience in PHWRs outside
the country and progressive evolution of enhanced safety features.
We are self-sufficient in all aspects of PHWR technology. As we
gain experience and master various aspects of the nuclear technology,
the performance of our plants is also improving. The average capacity
factor of our plants has steadily risen from 60 per cent in 1995-96,
to 90 per cent in the year 2002-03. Our nuclear power plants have
so far produced about 200 billion units. We have accumulated about
200 reactor-years of operational experience free of any serious
incident involving release of radioactivity to the environment.
We started our fast
breeder reactor (FBR) programme with the setting up of a Fast
Breeder Test Reactor at Kalpakkam. This reactor, operating with
indigenously developed mixed uranium-plutonium carbide fuel has
achieved all its technology objectives. Based on the experience
gained with this reactor and with the active cooperation of academia
and industry, detailed design and technology development of the
500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) has been completed.
Pre-project activities for this project have already begun at
Kalpakkam. Overall, we plan to have an installed nuclear capacity
of about 20,000 MW by the year 2020.
As a further step
towards self-sustained thorium utilization with a potential for
growth, a road map for the development of an accelerator-driven
system (ADS) has been prepared. The development of such a system
offers the promise of shorter doubling time with thorium-uranium-233
systems, incineration of long-lived actinides and fission products.
ADS alongwith thorium-uranium 233 reactors and fuel cycle has
the potential to provide a robust eco-friendly technology base
to a large-scale thorium utilization. As a first step towards
realization of ADS, we are launching the development of proton
accelerator in the 10th five-year plan.
It is worthwhile
to recognize the importance of high calorific value of nuclear
fuel. Nuclear fuel contains energy in a concentrated form requiring
much less tonnage for fuel to be transported or stored. In the
overall cost of electricity generated from nuclear fuel, the cost
of fuel is a much smaller fraction as compared to the other components.
If the capital cost of setting up atomic reactors can be brought
down substantially, nuclear energy would become an abundant and
inexpensive source of power. Today we are already building our
nuclear power stations at an overnight cost of around $1100 per
kWe. With the development of newer technologies we expect this
to go down further.
Nuclear energy is
based more on knowledge, less on materials, than most others,
and therefore, requires expertise in several disciplines of science
and technology. This expertise has to be acquired through painstaking
efforts and for the spread of nuclear technology, conventional
technology transfer models can work only if they are accompanied
by strong human resource development component - a prerequisite
for technology assimilation.
*
Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, Mumbai
