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"Construction activities will come to close
this year-end. Loading of the part fuel is expected
to happen during the first quarter of next year
and the reactor would go critical," said
S.C. Chetal, director at the Indira Gandhi Centre
for Atomic Research (IGCAR) that designed the
PFBR.
Chetal is also a director at Bharatiya Nabhikiya
Vidyut Nigam Ltd (BHAVINI), a public sector company
under the Directorate of Atomic Energy (DAE),
that has been given the responsibility to build
fast reactor power plants in the country.
When the PFBR is commissioned, power can be produced
at a lesser cost than electricity generated from
conventional sources.
A breeder reactor is one that breeds more material
for a nuclear fission reaction than it consumes.
The reaction produces energy that is used in the
form of electricity. The Indian fast reactors
will be fuelled by a blend of plutonium and uranium
oxide.
While the reactor will break up (fission) plutonium
for power production, it will also breed more
plutonium than it consumes. The original plutonium
comes from natural uranium.
The surplus plutonium from each fast reactor
can be used to set up more such reactors and grow
the nuclear capacity in tune with India's energy
needs.
Fast reactors form a key in the India's three-stage
nuclear power programme, which comprises pressurised
heavy water reactors (PHWRs) at the first stage,
fast breeder reactors (FBRs) at second and thorium-based
systems at the third stage. In 1985, India became
the sixth country in the world to have such a
technology.
The government has said in parliament that the
PFBR is expected to begin commercial production
in March 2015. Nuclear scientists though are of
the view that commercial generation can happen
even before that date.
According to Prabhat Kumar, project director,
BHAVINI, the PFBR construction work will be over
by September this year and testing of various
systems would end by December 2012 or January
2013.
"There is no inordinate time lag between
PFBR attaining criticality and it starting commercial
production given the fact that it is a newly-designed
reactor. With small core/fuel lot of tests on
reactor physics would be done. Then by gradually
increasing the generation engineering tests would
be carried out," a nuclear scientist told
IANS, preferring anonymity.
"A year of testing will be sufficient after
reactor attained criticality," he remarked.
Asked about the delay in commercial production,
Chetal said: "The PFBR is first of its kind
in the country and we want to be sure about the
functioning of each and every system."
According to him, with the loading of part fuel,
the reactor systems will be checked by increasing
the power generation in a gradual manner.
He does not agree that the delay in commercial
production of PFBR would have an impact on the
next two fast reactors that is planned at Kalpakkam.
"The design modifications made in the proposed
two reactors will not make them as first of its
kind. They will be commercial reactors. Since
PFBR is new we want to be sure with its systems,"
Chetal added.
The government has allotted Rs.250 crore for
pre-project activities for two more 500 MW units.
It has sanctioned construction of two more 500
MW fast reactors whose location is yet to be finalised.
(IANS)
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