Wow greater than the Kudamkulam plant! I read somewhere that Russian reactors(Kudamkulam) are the biggest in the world... I hope it should be biggest installed in India.
I am sure Japanese understand the effects of radiation hazards and thanks for the info on the safety issues.
I get irritated when someone says "Look at Germany, They have abolished Nuclear power..... If Germany can do it why can't India"..... India is NOT Germany on any aspects!
When Germany was reunited in 1990, all the Soviet-designed reactors in the east were shut down for safety reasons and are being decommissioned. These comprised four operating VVER-440s, a fifth one under construction and a small older VVER reactor.
In 2000 the European Commission approved the merger of two of Germany's biggest utilities, Veba and Viag, to form E.ON, which owned or had a stake in 12 of the country's 19 nuclear reactors which were operating then.
France meets over 80% of it's energy needs via nuclear, India needs to go on a war footing and build more plants as nuclear energy is clean, less dependent on fossil fuels as well as meeting our massive energy needs.
BHAVINI is setting up the country's first indigenously designed 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, around 80 km from Chennai.
A breeder reactor is one that breeds more material for a nuclear fission reaction than it consumes. The PFBR will be fuelled by a blend of plutonium and uranium oxide, called MOX fuel.
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 30 percent power generation that Chellapandi says is sizeable 150 MW.
The initial power generation would be gradually increased based on various test results.
According to Chellapandi, all the construction related works will be over in a month's time.
"The physical progress achieved by the PFBR is 98 percent. The balance is mainly intellectual or knowledge inputs," Chellapandi said.
He reiterated that there are no external items that are needed for the project's completion.
He said various stages of the project are being tested and officials from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) are regularly visiting the project.
"We are trying to make sure that the deadline is not slipped," Chellapandi said.
The dummy fuel (fuel pins similar to the real fuel pins but without the fission material)
pins numbering 1,757 were loaded in 2013.
Meanwhile, the operators are being trained to run the plant.
The successful commissioning of the reactor will be a big feather in the cap of Indian nuclear scientists.
The
PFBR is designed by Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR).
If PFBR gets commissioned this calendar year then it will be the second mega atomic power plant that would go on stream in Tamil Nadu giving the much needed relief to the power starved state.
The
second 1,000 MW atomic power plant being set up at Kudankulam by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) is also slated to attain criticality (beginning of nuclear fission process for the first time) in June.
NPCIL is hoping to load the real fuel in the reactor in June after removing the dummy fuel bundles from the reactor.
Dummy fuel assemblies, made of lead instead of uranium, are the exact replica of the actual nuclear fuel assemblies, both in dimension and weight.
The NPCIL is setting up two 1,000 MW Russian reactors at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district, 650 km from Chennai.
The first unit attained criticality, which is the beginning of the fission process, July 2013.
Subsequently it was connected to the southern power grid in October 2013 but the commercial power generation began only December 31, 2014.
