Interactive Session with Dr. Anil Kakodkar
Question: Sir you are talking about fossil fuels and there are bio fuels which can be used. There is wind, solar and water. When you say Gandhian principles you are based on, why don’t you use these principles? You are copying America. I have a suggestion, the excreta and urine which are put into the ocean, one can put a pipe and divert it to the villages and have gas and electricity on a large scale over there. You can have medicines of that as China is doing. Sir, you are copying America, all that technology you are doing here. Why don’t you follow Gandhian principles, which Gandhi has laid down, which you stand for?
Response from Dr. Anil Kakodkar :
The picture which I showed you about energy resources and also later how different energy resources are participating in meeting the requirement.
This also accounts for the entire programme in the non-conventional area in the most optimistic manner, just as it accounts for programmes in other areas of energy use. So, it is not as if this has not been factored. Secondly, in terms of the total energy availability, again if you see these bars here (green ones), these are renewables and other renewables including solar. Even solar has been estimated here, the red bar is hydro. So they are all factored. Let there be no mistake. I think, non-conventional energy or renewable energy is the most important thing. We must make full use, hundred percent use of that. But then, on the scale on which I am talking to you here, this is a very small fraction. Let’s not be emotional about it. I would urge you to take actual numbers and calculate and you will come to the conclusion that, while this is an important fraction, as I said, I repeat again, we must make full use of it, because it is renewable. But this is not going to bridge this deficit. That is for sure. It is not as if we are trying to copy America. If we are to copy America, we would have given away three-stage nuclear programme long time back. We have been the ardent custodians and we held our ground to keep that Indian programme as Indian programme. So, we are not copying anybody. I can tell you a time will come when the rest of the world will copy India. At the same time we have to be dispassionate and we have to look at actual numbers, because after all country’s development is at stake. That is the only thing I would say.
Question: Do you have a time-frame for building this thorium-based nuclear reactor? How do you see the prospects of becoming a world leader in this technology?
Response from Dr. Anil Kakodkar :
Well, put it this way, we do not work on development of a technology to become world leaders. We work on a technology to meet our own national needs. I am only pointing out that in the process, because we are pursuing a particular line which is different from the rest of the world, but at the same time we are very sure that the rest of the world would need this kind of technology with a time phasing. So we would automatically become world leaders. Becoming a world leader is not the primary goal. I think meeting our requirement is the main goal. What I am trying to say is that world leadership would eventually any way happen. Let us not run behind that.
As far as thorium reactor is concerned, at what point of time thorium will come on scene, this is a little more difficult to explain. I will try. In technological terms, all aspects of thorium technology have been developed. We, in fact, have a small reactor running at Kalpakkam, which runs on uranium 233. U233 is a material which does not occur in nature and has to be artificially produced from thorium. That is the fuel that thorium gives. So, obviously, we could not have produced uranium 233 and put to a reactor use unless we have mastered all aspects of this technology. So once that is done, we need to expand it to a larger scale deployment of thorium.
We need to grow our experience, the scale of operations have to grow. So technology development is one path that I think we are very much there, otherwise we will not be talking about it. AHWR (Advanced Heavy Water Reactor) which I mentioned is a 300 MW electric system, fairly a large system. But if it comes to deployment of thorium for large scale energy production it has to be done in a sequence. The three-stage programme has to be implemented in a sequence. You must grow sufficient capacity in the second stage and then only deploy thorium. Because, if you do it earlier, prematurely, then that will become a factor which will mitigate the growth. Just to give an example, the PHWR is a starting point, while fast reactors are a boost phase. You can ramp up the power generation capacity using fast reactors. Similarly thorium is a cruise phase; you can fly for as long as you wish, because there is plenty of energy, but the height at which you will fly would depend on how much boost you have received. That boost will come only from fast reactors. So now it is left to us, when you want to deploy. If you want to demonstrate technology which we will once we set up AHWR in a matter of 6 years or 7 years construction time, we would have demonstrated to the world the technology. But the deployment of thorium has to be necessarily delayed. We must allow a significant capacity, a few hundred GW, to be set up through fast reactors, before one deploys thorium.
Question: It is a three-part question. After your presentation it is quite clear and convincing that we require nuclear power for our country.
(i) What is the possibility of a Chernobyl like incident happening?
(ii) How are we going to arrange the finance?
(iii) What happens if any of these nuclear reactors fall in the wrong hands?
Response from Dr. Anil Kakodkar :
Chernobyl happened in a particular kind of reactor. The reactor type that was affected there was RBMK (is an acronym for the Russian reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy). Nobody builds that kind of reactor now. By the way at Chernobyl, there was a nuclear excursion, but the big explosion and the fall-out was a result of a chemical explosion. What really happened was in that reactor, because of an excursion, one of the channels, may be several channels, ruptured and the coolant came in contact with the hot graphite which was in the reactor. That graphite was kept at something like 500° centigrade. So, those of you who are in chemical industry can very well imagine, if a hot-steam-water mixture is blown over even hotter graphite what would happen? It releases lot of combustible and explosive gases. It is that huge mass of gas that exploded. And Chernobyl did not have a containment vessel. Now no modern reactor has hot graphite and all modern reactors have thermatically sealed containment, which can withstand high pressure and remain leak tight. So strictly speaking Chernobyl cannot happen in the modern reactors.
Secondly, even if Chernobyl cannot happen, the nuclear world or the professionals have not been complacent. They have asked a question? Alright Chernobyl cannot happen, but then a severe accident like Chernobyl if it happens, then what? So all reactor types are today looked at, not just for operational upsets, they are designed for all-design-bases accidents, the loss of coolants, so on and so forth. Further, they are also designed to factor in severe accidents. All designs have to show that even in a severe accident you will have not have a very significant effect outside the reactor. There are several features, I will not go into details, it suffices to say that modern designs contain features to cope up with severe accidents. There is a body called World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), all reactors in the world, all power reactors, all utility companies in the world are today members of WANO. WANO operates on the principle of mutual peer review. So every power plant is subject to peer review by members coming from other power plants from other countries. This mutual learning has taken the level of safety to a much higher level. Today we can definitely say that we have minimized the chance of an accident to a very, very insignificant level.
The second question about raising the finance, this is, of course, important. The plan that we have is, number one NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited) today, thanks to its excellent operation over the years is a cash-rich company. NPCIL can finance on its own resources upto around 10,000 – 12,000 MW capacity. This is on the basis of present situation. To build 10 – 12 reactors you are going to take may be 6-7 years, I am sure they will accumulate even more resources to carry on further. Secondly we are going to join hands with partners. The current Atomic Energy Act allows JVs to be set up with NPCIL holding majority share. That will allow us to raise some additional finance. We have done our sums and atleast for next 10-15 years, I think, this is not a very big issue. I would imagine that any power business produces 10-15% return. I think in next 10-15 years time nuclear power will become more competitive. So in a competitive world we will probably produce more returns than other competing possibilities. I think the business will propel itself, ultimately for growth you have to be able to run the business which propels itself. That is, in my view, exactly what would happen.
Third question (what if falls in the wrong hands). This is an important issue. First of all we now factor in our designs, the security threats, which is on a continuous improvement part. At the same time, we also factor in what is known as insider threat. The security consciousness has gone to very high level. As a part of evolution one is also talking about evolving systems, which will provide security robustness by design, not just by security framework, you also bring in some design features which provide the security robustness. Lastly, the design of nuclear reactor is such that, the basic reactor core has to be shielded and is in a thick concrete. In fact, it may be something like 2½ to 3 meters thick. So it is very difficult for somebody to go close to a nuclear reactor. Even for us to maintain the reactor we have to resort to remote tooling, remote automation. But this is a challenge. One has to remain alive to it at all times. There is an international convention on physical protection of nuclear materials and where all countries are bound to create such security infrastructure for protecting nuclear materials. India is also part of this. These are the reasons why we are actually going slow on opening up completely for the private sector. We have to move forward in a controlled fashion.
Question: Recently we have seen Indian government committing around 30 GWe of capacity to three countries, particularly France, Russia and recently with Mrs. H. Clinton coming to India we have seen some 10,000 MW commitments. I just want to understand what will be the role of Indian private sector companies in future in nuclear power industry and as you have correctly mentioned the huge potential coming up here.
Response from Dr. Anil Kakodkar :
I think there is a great role. The civil nuclear cooperation has come about as a result of lot of intense diplomatic activity over a long time. At this moment we have intergovernmental agreements between India and France, India and Russia and India and United States. We are looking forward to setting up capacities as an additionality with the cooperation of these three countries to start with. That does not mean that it is limited to that. There are, of course, possibilities of expanding that even beyond. That 40,000 MWe, which I mentioned, is equivalent to 400,000 in 2050. It will all depend on how much uranium is available, how much thermal reactor capacity we can set up and the endeavour would be to set up as large a capacity as we can, because ultimately that will allow us to go even higher, because energy security over long period of time is very important. So this is just the beginning, we do look forward to growth both in terms of light water capacity addition as well as corresponding fast reactor capacity addition on the basis of spent fuel which will arise from these reactors. All this is over and above the domestic three-stage programme.
With regard to the role of private sector, nuclear technology has many complexities. One is with regard to physical protection security, material accounting is another complexity, there are many complexities. It is not as simple as setting up a normal commercial enterprise or for that matter a normal commercial power station. I do not want to embarrass anybody, but I think, the case of Enron is very famous and very close to what we have seen. Imagine if such a thing happens in case of a nuclear power plant. Enron could be shut down and re-started. A nuclear power station even if it does not produce power, you cannot lock it up and go home. Because the pumps have to run, the fuel has to be cooled whether it is producing electricity or not. So the industry has to go through a learning experience. In my view, the best way of capturing, gathering that experience is to join hands with NPCIL, because NPCIL has several decades of experience. Join them as a partner to start with and learn the roles and responsibilities. Things are expanding; a time will come when one can think of taking further steps. Having said that for the nuclear utility business, as far as manufacturing or construction sector is concerned, private sector is already participating and that would become a much bigger business in years to come.