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D'coda Dcoda

Announcing India Nuclear Energy 2011 - The Road Ahead! [27Sep11] - 0 views

  • Economies around the world continue to grow, and the need for electricity, near-carbon-free, reliable, and low-cost energy is growing tremendously. In order to reap the benefits of nuclear energy, to effectively bridge the demand supply gap for India and to also necessitate the need to bring the industry at one platform, UBM India is pleased to bring the 3rd edition of ‘India Nuclear Energy 2011’ – International Exhibition and Conference. India Nuclear Energy 2011 will be held from 29th September – 1st October, 2011 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon (East), Mu
  • India Nuclear Energy 2011 is co-partnered by Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), the nodal Government body in the Indian Nuclear Energy sector and Supported by Indian Nuclear Society (INS). The topic of discussion at the press conference revolved around India’s use of nuclear energy to meet growing electricity demand and to endorse programs to expand the peaceful use of nuclear energy while minimizing the risks of proliferation. The Conference provides a platform for luminaries from the power sector and the government to share their views on India’s Nuclear Power future. Mr. S.K. Malhotra, Department of Atomic Energy (Government of India), Mr. M.V. Kotwal, Senior Executive Vice-President and Director, L&T, Mr. Eric P. Loewen, President, American Nuclear Society, and Mr. Sanjeev Khaira, MD, UBM India, addressed the media.
  • Mr. Sanjeev Khaira, MD–UBM India said: “India’s effort has been to achieve continuous improvement and innovation in nuclear safety.  The basic principle being, for all projects the Government gives priority to people’s safety as generation of power. This is important at a time when we are in the process of expanding nuclear capacity at an incredible pace.” In tandem with the Asian peers India is recording a high growth rate and the demand for energy is always on the upper curve. India is facing an acute shortage of fuel, like the coal and gas. Primarily, India has coal-fired (thermal) stations; however the shortage is forcing the power producers to resort to importing coal, which is more expensive. This in turn has caused prices of power to increase and the shortage has also resulted in certain regions facing power failures.
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  • Considering the capital involved in solar, wind and other power generation options, the viable option for the developing nations is nuclear energy which provides a feasible source of energy. The conference supports the establishment and implementation of national and international safety standards in the design, construction, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. The Conference enumerated various pro’s & con’s that could be brought about by Nuclear energy, for India, Nuclear power is foreseeable as there is no other viable option. Due to the lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing and utilizing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium. And now with foreign technology and funding, it is expected that India’s Nuclear Power programme will receive a considerable boost. Through the upcoming three day event from 29th September, 2011, the Indian Power & Energy Sector will be linked to global players providing efficient and innovative solutions to make India a world leader in nuclear technology in the future.
  • Dr. Srikumar Banerjee – Chairman, Atomic Energy Commision will deliver the Key Note Address at “India Nuclear Energy Summit 2011” on 29th September 2011. Mr. Pierre Lellouche, French Minister of State for Foreign Trade has confirmed to be Guest of Honor for India Nuclear Energy Summit 2011. “The event will see participation from leading companies like DAE, L&T, GMR, Areva, GE, Westinghouse, Alstom, HCC, JSL, REC, Power Grid Corporation of India, Nuvia India, Nuscale Power, Schiess, American Nuclear Society, UBI France, Rosatom, Infotech, Lisega, United to name a few. The event will highlight the participation from various countries like USA, France, Russia and individual companies from UK, Germany & Canada. The event will also host symposium of Indo-US Nuclear Energy safety summit on 30th September 2011 and Indo- French Seminar, organized by French Trade Commission on 1st October 2011. The event will also witness the presence of French Ambassador, Jean-Raphael PEYTREGNET-Consul General of France in Mumbai, US Ambassador, US Consul General in Mumbai. It will also open doors of opportunities for domestic & international companies to tap the unexploited market of the nuclear sector in India. The format of the event has been designed to offer an opportunity for best networking and business opportunities and provide an interactive platform for equipment, technology suppliers and end users.
D'coda Dcoda

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's CEO Caroline Reda to Promote Nuclear Energy as Part of US-I... - 0 views

  • GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) president and CEO Caroline Reda is the top U.S. nuclear industry executive participating in a trade mission to India February 6-11. Reda will join U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who is leading the mission, and senior officials from the Export-Import Bank (EX-IM), the Trade Development Agency (TDA), and executives from almost two dozen other U.S. companies
  • This trade mission seeks to further President Barack Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015, supporting economic growth and creating several million new jobs. In 2010, U.S. exports to India increased to $19.3 billion, a nearly 18 percent increase from 2009’s level of $16.4 billion.
  • The group will be visiting several cities in India, among them New Delhi and Mumbai, in order to explore export opportunities in a broad range of advanced industrial sectors including civil nuclear power generation, trade, defense and security, civil aviation, information and communications technologies.
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  • Reda is participating in her first mission to India since becoming GEH’s CEO in July 2010
  • “Exports are leading the U.S. economic recovery, spurring future economic growth and creating jobs in America,” Locke said when the administration first announced its plans for the trade mission in late 2010. “Increasing trade between the U.S. and India will help drive innovation and create jobs in both countries. As trading partners, U.S. companies can help India meet the ambitious economic and social goals laid out by its government, while the Indian market holds enormous potential for U.S. exporters.”
  • Joining Reda for GE is Timothy Richards, GE Energy’s managing director for energy policy and a veteran of several previous missions to India. Those previous missions focused on civilian nuclear cooperation as a means to help modernize India’s industrial infrastructure and support future economic growth.
D'coda Dcoda

Loewen leads U.S. nuclear energy mission to India [29Sep11] - 0 views

  • A high-powered nuclear energy delegation from the United States, led by American Nuclear Society President Eric Loewen, is visiting India this week to participate in the Indo–U.S. Nuclear Energy Safety Summit being held here on September 30.
  • Explaining the objective ahead of his first ever visit to India, Loewen said, “Twenty of my ANS colleagues, who come from academia, the government, and industry will join me in seeing first-hand how India develops nuclear energy to provide safe, clean, and affordable electricity to a growing population and economy.”
  • Loewen added, “Of course, as a nuclear engineer, I am particularly eager to visit some of India’s leading nuclear sites.” Loewen’s delegation will tour the Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) government sites, and will meet with government and industry officials in both Chennai and Mumbai. ANS last led a mission to India in 2007.
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  • Loewen will present an ANS Presidential Citation to Anil Kakodkar, former chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Commission and secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, for his critical leadership role in successfully negotiating the Indo–U.S. civil nuclear agreement. Loewen will also present opening remarks at the Indo–U.S. Summit and will discuss the safety advantages of fast breeder reactors, a technology that he manages at General Electric, and that is part of India’s three-stage plan for civil nuclear energy.
  • Presenting along with Loewen will be R.K. Sinha, director of the BARC, on the safety advantages of the advanced heavy water reactor being developed by India to take advantage of vast thorium reserves. U.S. representatives of four lightwater reactor suppliers will also make presentations: Westinghouse on the AP-1000 pressurized light-water reactor GE-Hitachi on the ESBWR boiling water reactor NuScale Power on the lightwater pressurized small modular reactor Areva USA on the EPR pressurized light-water reactor
Dan R.D.

Is India exporting radiation to the world? [18Oct11] - 0 views

  • India has become a reprocessing hub for waste from around the world. But the regulation is lax, leading to concerns radioactive material may be in the products exported back to the world.
  • a scrap metal dealer had been admitted to the hospital and was showing symptoms of radiation exposure.
  • Deepak Jain, a 27-year-old had been rushed to the hospital after a high fever hadn't subsided for seven days and the skin on his hand started peeling off.
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  • Jain was among the eight people who were affected by radiation poisoning. He, like the others, had been exposed to cobalt-60, which had leaked from an irradiation machine being dismantled in the area. Jain refused the Rs 200,000 (A$ 4,000) compensation offered to him by the government and is instead suing Delhi University, from whose labs the machine originated. The university had bought the gamma irradiation machine in 1970 but it had not been used since the mid-1980s.
  • In the last few decades, India has quickly become the world's dumping ground for all sorts of waste, including hazardous material like old electronic gadgets or 'e-waste'. A large force of both formal and informal workers is involved in the acquiring, processing, and managing of this waste, yet, experts say the necessary checks and balances are missing.
  • This radiation then shows up in the finished products made from recovered materials that are exported back to the world. In 2007, radioactive steel originating from India was found in Germany and later that year, French officials reported that buttons for elevators, which had been made from recycled steel from India were emitting radiation.
  • "Waste flows from rich to poor and that's the nature of that flow," says Sinha. "I find it slightly amusing to say that processing waste is perhaps an economic activity and it will add to your GDP. I get the sense from the government that they are quite comfortable about this waste coming in." He says they routinely turn a blind eye to many of the things that are happening in the industry, which could be potential threats not only for the people involved in dealing with this waste, but the ecology and the country as a whole.
  • What happens in India, however, will have global reverberations, warns Chaturvedi. "India is exporting all kinds of things, in addition to the people who're being exposed and getting on planes," she says. "I think the point is how India's own secrecy is making it pretty much a radioactive menace for the rest of the world."
D'coda Dcoda

Solar Cheaper Than Diesel Making India's Mittal Believer: Energy - Bloomberg [24Jan12] - 0 views

  • India is producing power from solar cells more cheaply than by burning diesel for the first time, spurring billionaire Sunil Mittal and Coca-Cola Co. (KO)’s mango supplier to jettison the fuel in favor of photovoltaic panels. The cost of solar energy in India declined by 28 percent since December 2010, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The cause was a 51 percent drop in panel prices last year as the world’s 10 largest manufacturers, led by China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP), doubled output capacity.
  • “Solar is going mainstream in India, helped by Chinese pricing,” said Ardeshir Contractor, founder of developer Kiran Energy Solar Power Pvt. Kiran, whose investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, an early financier of Skype Technologies SA, won one of the largest projects auctioned by India last month.
D'coda Dcoda

How safe is India's nuclear energy programme? [23Aug11] - 0 views

  • The March nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan led countries with nuclear power plants to revisit safety measures. The International Atomic Energy Agency constituted a global expert fact-finding mission to the island nation. The purpose of the mission was to ascertain facts and identify initial lessons to be learned for sharing with the nuclear community.
  • The mission submitted its report in June and the report stated in clear terms that “there were insufficient defence for tsunami hazards. Tsunami hazards that were considered in 2002 were underestimated. Additional protective measures were not reviewed and approved by the regulatory authority. Severe accident management provisions were not adequate to cope with multiple plant failures”.
  • Further, on the regulatory environment the report states: “Japan has a well organized emergency preparedness and response system as demonstrated by the handling of the Fukushima accident. Nevertheless, complicated structures and organizations can result in delays in urgent decision making.” The inability to foresee such extreme scenarios is a forewarning to countries that are expanding nuclear capacity at a frenzied pace.
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  • For India, this is a lesson and an exceptional opportunity to relook at the protected structures of the department of atomic energy (DAE), and establish more transparent processes and procedures.
  • In the past, the Three Mile Island incident (1979) and Chernobyl accident (1986) had provided similar opportunities to evaluate nuclear safety and regulatory systems. India, in response to these incidents, constituted safety audits to assess the safety of nuclear power plants. However, A. Gopalakrishnan, (a former chairman of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) in his recent article said, “DAE management classified these audit reports as ‘top secret’ and shelved them. No action was taken on the committee’s findings.”
  • If this is so, these reports, or at least action-taken reports, ought to have been published and made available. Such steps could have guaranteed DAE considerable public faith in the functioning of regulatory authorities and given significant confidence in engaging with stakeholders in the present expansion plan.
  • Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd, post-Fukushima has undertaken safety evaluation of 20 operating power plants and nuclear power plants under construction. The inm report titled Safety Evaluation of Indian Nuclear Power Plants Post Fukushima Incident suggested a series of safety measures that must be incorporated in all the audited nuclear power plants in a time-bound manner. Measures pertain to strengthening technical and power systems, automatic reactor shutdown on sensing seismic activity, enhancement of tsunami bunds at all coastal stations, etc.
  • However, in the same breath, the report provides assurance by stating that, “adequate provisions exist at Indian nuclear power plants to handle station blackout situations and maintain continuous cooling of reactor cores for decay heat removal”. Further, the reports recalls, “the incidents at Indian nuclear power plants, like prolonged loss of power supplies at Narora plant in 1993, flood incident at Kakrapar plant in 1994 and tsunami at Madras (Chennai) plant in 2004 were managed successfully with existing provisions.”
  • DAE’s official response, post-Fukushima, has been cautious while providing assurance. Separately, DAE has made it clear the nuclear energy programme will continue as planned after incorporating the additional safety features identified by the safety audit report.
  • Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his speech two days ago in West Bengal was emphatic about the future of India’s nuclear energy programme. He said that “there would be no looking back on nuclear energy. We are in the process of expanding our civil nuclear energy programme. Even as we do so, we have to ensure that the use of nuclear energy meets the highest safety standards. This is a matter on which there can be no compromise”.
  • S. Banerjee, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and secretary DAE at the International Atomic Energy Agency Ministerial Conference on Safety, categorically said: “India’s effort has been to achieve continuous improvement and innovation in nuclear safety with the basic principle being, safety first, production next.” This is important at a time when we are in the process of expanding nuclear capacity at an incredible pace.
  • Currently, there are several domestic and international power projects in the pipeline. DAE has projected 20,000MWe (megawatt electric) by 2020 from present 4,780MWe, a fourfold increase from the current production. Going further, Banerjee stated that India hopes to achieve targets exceeding 30,000MWe by 2020 and 60,000MWe by 2032. This is a tall order, considering our experience in executing major infrastructure projects. DAE has struggled in the past to achieve targets.
  • Execution of these targets is to be achieved by importing high-capacity reactors and through DAE’s own programme. As we see greater activity in the nuclear energy sector?which was traditionally not transparent in engaging with the public?the trust deficit could only widen as we expand the programme
  • Land acquisition is already a major concern for infrastructure projects and has become an issue at the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant as well. However, the biggest challenge in this expansion would be to convince the public of the safety and security of nuclear power plants and also arrive at a comprehensive information and communication package for states in whose territory projects are being executed. Because of the nature of India’s nuclear programme?the combined existence of civilian and military programmes?the nation may not be in a position to achieve the kind of regulatory autonomy, process and engagement that has been witnessed in many European countries and in the US.
  • The bifurcation of India’s nuclear establishment into civilian and military, subsequent to commitment under India-US civil nuclear cooperation has provided with the prospect of an empowered regulatory system.
  • Incidents in Jaitapur and the Fukushima nuclear disaster have further pushed the government to commit to establish an independent nuclear regulator, the Bill of which is expected to be in Parliament any time this year. Nuclear programme is likely to face more complex issues in the future with respect to environment, social and health. Neighbouring countries may also join the chorus soon since some of the proposed nuclear power plant sites are close to our borders
D'coda Dcoda

India's nuclear future put on hold [06Oct11] - 1 views

  • An increase in anti-nuclear sentiment after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March has stalled India's ambitious plan for nuclear expansion. The plan, pushed forward by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, aims to use reactors imported from the United States, France and Russia to increase the country's nuclear-power capacity from the present 4,780 megawatts to 60,000 megawatts by 2035, and to provide one-quarter of the country's energy by 2050. But now there are doubts that the targets will ever be met if safety fears persist.
  • Officials say that safety precautions are sufficient to make the proposed reactors, some of which are to be sited along the coasts, immune to natural disasters. But protesters are not listening. In April, violent protests halted construction in Jaitapur in the western state of Maharashtra, where Parisian company Areva is expected to build six 1,650-megawatt European Pressurized Reactors. In August, West Bengal state refused permission for a proposed 6,000-megawatt 'nuclear park' near the town of Haripur, which was slated to host six Russian reactors. The state government said that the area is densely populated, and the hot water discharged from the plants would affect local fishing.
  • On 19 September, following hunger strikes by activists from the People's Movement Against Nuclear Technology, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state asked Prime Minister Singh to halt work at Koodankulam, about 650 kilometres south of Chennai, where Russia's Atomstroyexport is building two reactors and plans to build four more.
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  • The opposition has focused mainly on imported reactors, the designs of which are untried. "The French reactor offered to India is not working anywhere in the world and the Russian reactor had to undergo several design changes before we accepted it," says Annaswamy Prasad, retired director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai. "If any accident happens in India it will be in imported reactor and not in our home-made pressurized heavy water reactors" (PHWRs), he adds.
  • Ideally, says Prasad, India should boost its nuclear capacity by building more PHWRs fuelled by natural uranium, instead of importing reactors that require enriched uranium. Although the foreign vendors have agreed to supply fuel for the lifetime of their reactors, overreliance on imports will derail India's home-grown programme, the Bhabha scheme, he warns.
  • The Bhabha scheme involves building PHWRs, which would produce enough plutonium as a by-product to fuel fast-breeder reactors that would in turn convert thorium — which is abundantly available in India — into fissile uranium-233. In the third and final phase, India hopes to run its reactors using the 233U–Th cycle without any need for new uranium. Gopalakrishnan says that building indigenous reactors is not enough: the country must also invest in renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. But a survey by Subhas Sukhatme, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, warns that India's renewable energy sources, even stretched to their full potential, can at best supply 36.1% of the country's total energy needs by the year 2070. The balance would have to come from fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 
D'coda Dcoda

A Nuclear Opponent from Half a World Away - India [10Oct11] - 0 views

  • Vermont Law School (a private institution) is known as a leader in environmental law.  Students at the school have an Environmental Law Society and an International Law Society, and on September 30 these societies hosted a public meeting that featured Vaishali Patil, a woman from India who is an “environmental activist” and nuclear power opponent.
  • During the September 30 meeting that featured Patil, everyone in attendance introduced themselves, and Crafton said that she had come to the law school to work against the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
  • Speaking from notes on a piece of paper the size of an index card, she gave “red meat” to the audience of about 30 students and three or four older people. Her talk was similar to her speech on this YouTube presentation from earlier this year.
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  • Patil’s topic was the Jaitapur nuclear plant in India, which will consist of six 1650-MWe Areva plants. There are also 18 fossil power plants proposed for the same area. The region is heavily dependent on agriculture and fishing, and the land for the power plants was originally farmed, but had to be taken by eminent domain. Patil told a long and compelling story about the process of land taken for public use, and the many levels of appeal and the struggle to get compensation.
  • The Indian farmers in the area are against the use of coal, so the government said, “Look at the United States as an example, with its many nuclear plants.” To prepare themselves to battle the Jaitapur project, local opponents traveled to the site of India’s first nuclear plants at Tarapur (two boiling water reactors, 150 MWe each, commercial start in 1969) and talked to local residents about the effects of the plants. According to Patil, the travelers heard horror stories from the residents about accidents that are kept secret, high infertility, aborted births, use of contract workers only, contaminated seawater preventing fishing, and radioactivity in a 200-km radius.
  • There have been contentious public hearings about the Jaitapur plants. With the help of nuclear activists from abroad, the local opponents—characterized as “farmers”—filed more than 1000 objections. Generally, she said, there is public fear of radiation in India, with special concern over its effect on the mango crop, which is an important economic export. There had been a previous bad experience for farmers and mangos from the use of pesticides, and so they don’t want the same thing happening with nuclear. Whether nuclear power is good or bad is another issue, Patil said. She claimed that the world is trying to turn India into a uranium market for foreign uranium. “The U.S. people are against nuclear power,” she said. In addition, she charged that approval for the plants in India was signed quickly when President Sarkozy of France visited the country. “We feel like guinea pigs,” she said in closing.
  • After the talk, the audience gathered in the hallway for refreshments and conversation. Then the older people and four or five students went to a lounge adjacent to the classrooms. In the lounge, one of the older people invoked the mass marches against the Seabrook nuclear plant a generation ago. Patil said, “We have to go to the streets at some point” and she passed around a clipboard for signatures for those who want training for the street demonstrations, or to be “legal observers.” She also announced that there would be a demonstration at the Vermont Yankee plant on October 13, complete with puppets and the presentation of a “Trojan Cow.”
Dan R.D.

India should move ahead with nuclear energy plan: IEA | The Nuclear N-Former [31Oct11] - 0 views

  • Global energy advisory body, the International Energy Agency (IEA), says that India should not get influenced by countries that have announced changes in their nuclear energy plans in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. “India should go ahead and implement its civil
  • nuclear power plans,” Richard Jones, American diplomat and the deputy executive director of IEA told the Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview. “Of the countries like Germany, Italy and few others that have announced changes in their nuclear policy, we were not expecting them to do much in nuclear anyway.”
  • Jones said while India must “take a lesson from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and adequately address its security and safety concerns,” but should not slow down its nuclear capacity addition plans as switching to alternate fuels like gas for power generation.
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  • “China has decided to go ahead with its nuclear power plans but there still seem to be concerns in India over adding nuclear capacities using large imported reactors,” said Jones.
D'coda Dcoda

: Is Thorium the Energy Panacea We Have Been Waiting For? [29Nov11] - 0 views

shared by D'coda Dcoda on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • conversations have been popping up about thorium in recent years and how it can be a game-changer in the energy industry. Thorium has incredible potential as an ultra-safe, clean, and cheap nuclear energy source which can power the world for millennia.
  • Thorium is found naturally in rocks in the form of thorium-232, and has a half-life of about 14 billion years. Estimates by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show it is about three times more common in the Earth's crust than uranium. It can be obtained through various methods, most commonly through the extraction from monazite sands. Known reserves of thorium are not well-known due to lack of exploratory research. The US Geological Service estimates that the USA, Australia, and India hold the largest reserves. India is believed to have the lion's share of thorium deposits. In the United States, Idaho contains a large vein deposit. The world has an estimated total of 4.4 million tons
  • A newly created organization known as the Weinberg Foundation has taken up the cause of promoting thorium energy. The foundation was named after Dr. Alvin Weinberg, a nuclear energy researcher in the 1960s who laid out the vision of safe and abundant thorium power. He pioneered the Molten Salt Reactor using thorium in its liquid fuel form at the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This reactor had an inherently safer design and dramatically reduced the amount of atomic waste in comparison to typical nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, the thorium reactor program was not fully pursued due to political and military reasons.
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  • Thorium reactors offer absolutely zero possibility of a meltdown because it cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction without priming; fission would stop by default.- Thorium reactions do not create weapons-grade by-products.- Waste from a thorium reactive stays radioactive for only a few hundred years rather than tens of thousands of years.- Pure thorium from the ground does not require enrichment, as opposed to uranium.
  • there are projects underway in the United States, China, India, and elsewhere. Germany and India already have existing commercial power stations powered by thorium. India has a goal of meeting 30 percent of its energy needs from thorium by the year 2050. In the US, a reactor project is ongoing in Odessa Texas and should be operational by 2015.
  • For more information: http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/index.php
D'coda Dcoda

India Starts Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants [18Jul11] - 0 views

  • Reactors are scheduled to be completed in the year 2016-17 Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd's (NPCIL) second pair of 700 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) – RAPP-7&8 (Rajasthan Atomic Power Project- 7&8) – achieved first pour of concrete last week at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, India. The First Pour of Concrete (FPC) is an important milestone in the construction of a nuclear power project and signifies the start of the construction (zero date). The reactors are scheduled to be completed in the year 2016-17. On their completion, 1400 MW capacity will be added to the Northern Electricity Grid, of which 700 MW will be allocated to the state of Rajasthan. Designed in India, the 700-MW PHWR is the latest nuclear power reactor, which has been designed by NPCIL by scaling up its 540-MW PHWRs (TAPS-3&4) that are under successful operation at Tarapur in Maharashtra since 2005. Two more 700-MW PHWRs are also under construction at Kakrapar in Gujarat.
  • The 700-MW PHWRs have advanced safety features, including passive safety systems that work on natural principles like gravity, natural convection, etc. and do not need operator intervention or motive power to ensure reactor safety under any state of operation.
  • There are two independent and diverse systems to shut down the reactor, a ‘Passive Decay Heat Removal System’ to ensure cooling of the reactor core even in conditions of total loss of power, and steel-lined inner containment to contain the entire radioactivity within the reactor building even in a severe accident scenario
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  • Currently, there are 20 nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 4780 MW in operation and 7 reactors with a capacity of 5300 MW under construction in the country. On progressive completion of these reactors, the installed nuclear power capacity will reach 10080 MW by the year 2017. More reactors are planned to take the installed capacity to 20000 MW or more by the year 2020.
D'coda Dcoda

Protests thwart India's nuclear plans [07Oct11] - 0 views

  • An increase in anti-nuclear sentiment after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in March has stalled India’s ambitious plan for nuclear expansion, officials said. Under the plan pushed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reactors imported from the United States, France and Russia were to increase the country’s nuclear-power capacity from the present 4,780 megawatts to 60,000 megawatts by 2035 and to provide one-quarter of the country’s energy by 2050. End Extract http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/5464357/protests-thwart-india-s-nuclear-plans
D'coda Dcoda

The Hindu :AEC chief puts odds of N-plant accidents at '1-in-infinity' [10Nov11] - 0 views

  • The probability of an accident due to a nuclear plant is one is to infinity and all atomic power plants in the country conform to safety standards, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Srikumar Banerjee said on Thursday. “At least 1.75 lakh people die due to road accidents in a single year whereas there are nearly 14,000 nuclear plants in the world and the casualty rate till date is just 52,” Dr. Banerjee told reporters on the sidelines of the golden jubilee celebrations of Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory (TBRL) at Ramgarh, near Chandigarh. Pointing out that no human activity can be risk-free, he said there was a definite need for creating awareness and programmes should to be intensified to convince the people in the neighbourhood of a proposed or existing nuclear plant. He said human body faces more radiation during a CT scan than working in a nuclear power plant.
  • Referring to the recent Fukushima nuclear accident, Dr. Banerjee said it happened after a gap of 25 years and the cause and effect of the accident was earthquake followed by a tsunami. “It was not a nuclear accident... immediately after the earthquake, the nuclear reactor shut down and nuclear chain reaction stopped,” he said adding it was a complete station blackout as the decay heat produced in the plant could not be taken out. He, however, said the total casualty due to the nuclear accident was zero. “The spread of radiation was not as high as it was projected,” he said talking about the nuclear accident in Japan. After a nuclear reactor is shut down the energy level comes down to around 2 per cent from 100 per cent due to heat decay, Dr. Banerjee said. He, however, exuded confidence all nuclear plants in the country are safe and conform to the standards of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and are taken care of by Nuclear Power Corporation. “India too experienced earthquakes and tsunami in the past but there was no nuclear accident as the nuclear plants had all the gadgets to give signal much in advance,” he said. Dr. Banerjee rejected that alarm bells had rung in India after the Japanese nuclear accident. “All steps needed for safety and security for nuclear plants have been taken by Nuclear Power Corporation,” he added.
  • He, however, stressed that it was necessary to strengthen the mechanism in the passive cooling system in nuclear plants in India. In the passive cooling system, heat can be taken out from the plant. Responding to a query regarding protests by habitants before setting up a nuclear plant in their neighbourhood, he said what is needed is to explain things to local people in simple local language and also convince them what actually the plant is. After land acquisition, a package must be given to the affected people and at all costs excellent relationship is needed with people living around the plant. He termed it as “baseless,” the allegation that nuclear radiation comes out from the nuclear plant. Besides, the plants along the coastal areas do not have any effect on the lives of fish, he added.
D'coda Dcoda

South Korea and India sign nuclear deal [26Jul11] - 0 views

  • South Korea's ambitions to enter the Indian energy market have received a big boost as the two countries signed a civil nuclear deal. The agreement will allow South Korea to export its nuclear energy technology to India. The deal comes at a time when India has been struggling to keep up its energy supply to meet the increased demand in wake of its rapid expansion. South Korea is the ninth country to sign a nuclear deal with India.
Jan Wyllie

India wants new tests before French reactors order [19Sep11] - 0 views

  • India wants new test results in light of the Fukushima disaster before finalising a multi-billion-euro order for new reactors with French nuclear energy giant Areva, France's Energy Minister Eric Besson said Monday.
  • India, which along with China is a major market for new nuclear plants, signed last December a framework deal worth an estimated seven billion euros ($9.5 billion) for Areva to build two EPR reactors, plus an option for four more. Once finalised, it would allow Areva to steal a march on US and Japanese competitors in the race to sell reactors to India, which aims to tap atomic power for a quarter of its power by 2050 from less than three percent now
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There are at least 10 reasons to say 'no' to nuclear energy (India) [09Oct11] - 0 views

  • 1. Nuclear power involves radiation exposure at all stages of its fuel cycle: from uranium mining and fuel fabrication to reactor operation and maintenance; to spent-fuel handling, storage and re-processing. 2. Reactors leave a toxic trail of high-level radioactive wastes which remain hazardous for thousands of years.
  • 3. The half-life of plutonium-239 produced by fission is 24,000 years. We have neither any way of storing nuclear wastes safely for such long periods nor nuetralising or disposing of them. Should we burden posterity with such a legacy?
  • 4. Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive if all the hidden costs are taken into account. That is why the private sector has not come forward to set up a nuclear power plant. 5. The industry claims nuclear power is safe but it is not. That is why it expends considerable effort in lobbying for laws to limit the operator’s or supplier’s liability for accidents to artificially low levels.
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  • 6. The industry acknowledges that nuclear power carries high risks of damage but wants governments, that is, the public, to subsidise and absorb them. 7. India has no independent authority that can evolve safety standards and regulate reactors for safety.
  • 8. India’s energy security could be achieved by a careful mix of conventional with biomass, solar-thermal and wind, as experts have pointed out. 9. After Fukushima, advanced countries had a rethink on nuclear power expansion plans and imposed a moratorium on new reactors. India, on the other hand, is planning a necklace of nuclear power plants along its coastline, unmindful of what it means to its fragile ecology and displacement of traditional fishermen.
  • 10. Last, but not the least, there are better and safer ways of boiling water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity.
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India's nuclear regulation must improve [24Aug12] - 0 views

  • A parliamentary report on nuclear safety regulation in India has pointed out serious organisational flaws and numerous failings relative to international norms. The report submitted to parliament by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India concerns the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), which reports to the policy-setting Atomic Energy Commission.
  • The most fundamental issue highlighted by the report was the unsatisfactory legal status and authority of the AERB. Despite India's international commitments, awareness of best practice and internal expert recommendations, the report said, "the legal status of AERB continued to be that of an authority subordinate to the central government, with powers delegated to it by the latter." A basic tenet of nuclear power regulation - as recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and implemented in most countries - is that the safety regulator must be independent of industry and government. It can then make autonomous decisions based purely on ensuring the proper level of care for public safety in a legal policy framework - but absent from either political or commercial interference. 
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Australia ruling party backs plans to sell uranium to India [06Dec11] - 0 views

  • Australia's ruling party backed endorsed plans to sell uranium to India under a bilateral nuclear agreement that overturned a ban on sales to countries that are not signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
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Japan's Government-Industrial Complex to Create Small "Japan" in Southern India [14Jan12] - 0 views

  • The news was there on Yomiuri Shinbun on January 5, 2012, but little noticed until someone picked it up and spread on Twitter overnight.The Japanese government in close collaboration with the big businesses in Japan is to build a city in southern India that will house 50,000 people, with "Japanese-quality" infrastructure including seaside resort, industrial park, hospital, shopping mall, and golf course (of course).
  • Many on Twitter are speculating that this is part of the plan by the Japan's political and business elites to abandon ship (Japan), and part of the reason for the Noda administration's insistence on the tax hike despite the incipient recession.While there is a great need for money within Japan to actually rebuild tsunami-devastated areas (not the bogus "decon" projects), the Noda administration has been busy distributing money in Asia. The Bank of Japan has opened multi-billion dollar currency swap lines with India ($15 billion) and South Korea ($70 billion).
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AFP: India better prepared for nuclear crisis: watchdog [29Sep11] - 0 views

  • India has improved procedures to deal with a nuclear emergency in the wake of the Fukushima crisis in Japan, the country's atomic energy watchdog said Thursday, after criticism of its preparedness."After Fukushima, we have drawn lessons on all aspects of reactor safety and one positive development is the integrated disaster management plan," the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board chairman S.S. Bajaj said.
  • Earlier this year, Bajaj's predecessor at the AERB, A. Gopalkrishnan, criticised India's readiness to deal with emergencies of any kind and said that plans to tackle major nuclear incidents were largely a paper exercise.Drills were infrequent "half-hearted efforts which amount more to a sham", he said after an massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Japanese Fukushima plant in March, forcing a re-think on nuclear power around the world.A survey of nearly 10,000 Indians at the time also suggested that 77 percent of people had concerns about atomic safety while 69 percent believed the authorities could not handle a nuclear disaster on the scale of that in Japan.
  • Bajaj told AFP on the sidelines of a nuclear energy summit in the financial hub Mumbai that India's nuclear emergency plan "was not that positive" in the past but added: "These weaknesses have been plugged."M.C. Abani, a nuclear specialist at the National Disaster Management Authority, said that six emergency exercises had been conducted at Indian nuclear power plants since March and procedures strengthened."NDMA has raised 10 battalions of National Disaster Response Force. Each battalion has 1,150 soldiers and officers. They are trained in handling nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological incidents," he said.
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  • Medical professionals working in and around existing and proposed nuclear power plants were also being trained in how to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear incident, he added.India is increasingly looking to nuclear power to meet the demands of its fast-growing economy and burgeoning population as well as to provide energy security.The South Asian country currently has 20 nuclear power plants, generating some 4,780 megawatts of power. Seven other reactors with a capacity of 5,300 megawatts are under construction.
  • The government aims to increase nuclear output to 63,000 MW by 2032.
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