Jay

Alain Bugat (left) , Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, France, with Baldev Raj, Director, IGCAR, in Kalpakkam on Wednesday .

CHENNAI, NOV. 11. A team of European scientific representatives is coming to India this weekend to discuss India's participation in the prestigious International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, which will generate energy through nuclear fusion.

A futuristic project, the ITER, will try to replicate the way the sun generates energy.

Alain Bugat, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of France, in a recent interview to The Hindu here, said: "India has been asked, I believe, to be a partner or associate partner, whatever may be the formula" in the ITER project.

"Europe is very positive about the candidature [partnership] of India" in the project. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India, had written to him last year on this issue, he added.

France is represented through the European Union in the ITER.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, in his joint press conference with the European Union leaders at The Hague on November 8, referred to the Galileo, the global positioning system, and the ITER project and said that India would be willing to invest money "appropriate to our participation" in them.

Mr. Bugat asserted that "India is in the right way" in pursuing the fast breeder reactor (FBR) programme. He said that "France has not abandoned" its FBR programme.

Its Phenix breeder reactor was still in operation. The decommissioning of the SuperPhenix breeder reactor had begun. Phenix would continue to operate till "there is no fuel to go further."

He is leading a delegation of six members to India. Today, the French team visited the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay, and held discussions with Mr. Kakodkar, the BARC Director, S. Banerjee, and the Director, Strategic Planning Group, DAE, R.B. Grover. On November 9, it visited the nuclear facilities at Kalpakkam, 60 km from Chennai.

The members went round the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), which has fathered India's FBR programme, the Madras Atomic Power Station, and the Nuclear Desalination Demonstration Plant there.

They held discussions with the IGCAR Director, Baldev Raj, the Station Director of MAPS, T.S. Rajendran, and the Project Director, Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, Prabhat Kumar, and their senior colleagues.

Renewal of links

Mr. Bugat said that one of the purposes of his current visit to India "is to renew our links for cooperation in the field of fast neutron reactors" and to forge cooperation at the R & D level in scientific topics such as fundamental physics, life sciences, reactor safety in thermal reactors and FBRs.

Answering a question on whether France was prepared to sell light water reactors (LWRs) to India without insisting that it should sign the NPT or fullscope safeguards agreement as demanded by a cartel called the Nuclear
Suppliers' Group, Mr. Bugat said that it was not a topic on which he could speak. "We are not diplomats. We are technicians, physicists and managers. So what I want to say is that cooperation between India and France is perfectly respectful of all international agreements that India and France have signed."

When Mr. Bugat was told that Bertrand Goldschmidt, the late pioneer of the French nuclear programme, had remarked in 1992 at Kovalam, near Chennai, that "France and India were prepared to flirt with each other but not really go to bed" in nuclear matters, and was asked whether the time was now ripe for the two countries to "go to bed" in nuclear matters, especially the LWRs, Mr. Bugat heartily laughed and said: "I cannot say. We can go to bed if diplomats and politicians come to a new round of agreement. There are certain ways in which science R&D is closer to political affairs than industrial ones. But we will not decide in the place of politicians."

`Mature behaviour'

His "personal point of view" was that India's behaviour "is very mature in technical and strategic choices."

Mr. Bugat described India's nuclear energy programme as "comprehensive and coherent." There was correlation between India's nuclear electricity reactors, research reactors and nuclear application in other fields. India had not involved itself in any nuclear controversy.

"This is something we appreciate. That is why it is interesting to maintain and develop cooperation between India and France," he said.

-The Hindu

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A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Jay

Fast breeder Reactors:
The fast breeder or fast breeder reactor (FBR) is a type of fast neutron reactor that produces more fissile material than it consumes.

A fast neutron reactor, commonly called simply fast reactor, is a nuclear reactor design that uses no moderator but instead relies on fast neutrons to sustain its chain reaction. Achieving this requires high-grade fuel such as enriched uranium or plutonium, but once this has been provided for the initial startup the reactor produces its own fuel and a surplus that can then be used to start other FBRs, hence the concept of a breeder.


The FBR program of India includes the concept of using thorium-232 to breed fissile uranium-233. India is also pursuing the thermal breeder reactor again using thorium. A thermal breeder is not possible with purely uranium/plutonium based technology. Thorium fuel is the strategic direction of the power program of India, owing to their large reserves of thorium, but worldwide known reserves of thorium are also some three times those of uranium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor

BarrFly

Very enlightening - thanks for the effort,

The Chap

Don't forget that they don't just melt-down: they go BANG. Best to stick with that CANDU export. Or at least wait for all that tritium to decay. Maybe wait 13 or so years. On the bright side that'll provide time to sweep all the birth defects under the carpet ...

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Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.

Samudra

Oh Hello !
Our reactors can work very well.Actually may be even better than reactors designed by Canadians.

AND we have enough self respect not to "import" our nuclear weapons , just like one of the imperialist countries which occupied India once.

ajaybhutani

btwe do import russian technology for nuclear power plants.

Felix

You think it's save?

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...and what I'm frightened off, is that they call it God's love...

The Chap

OK. Slowly this time. Fast Breeder Reactors can actually explode as opposed to melt-down. I'm sure all the Indian ones are very nice. Except for the fact that they leak tritium into the water supply. Even the Candu ones built under licence but with indinginous site materials and supervising engineers.

ajaybhutani

link??

Samudra

FBR is a totally indigineous effort ?
how much of "totally indian-genuis" ?

The Chap

Not "information" from the internet. Try an old industry rag called "Atom" published by BNFL. If not try a medical charity dealing with the birth defects? I'm sure that there must be one there on the ground. Ground water contamination is the unspoken Bhopal. Some what hushed up in the (somewhat comprehensible) mad dash on that part of India to produce nukes. All v. regretable. Hubris anyone?

Jay

Ground water contamination in Bhopal?? Its not becoz of nukes, but becoz of Union Carbide. Talk about MNC's
http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/01bhopal.htm
http://www.bhopal.com/

I dont think there is any kind of nuclear facility in Bhopal, they have one in Indore (CAT).

The Chap

Sorry Ray, I should have said "an" unspoken Bhopal. Nothing to do with chemicals but on a scale of suffering that is equivalent. God-awful stuff. Similar to tritium contamination in former Soviet states. Lest any of us forget ,13yrs is only the half-life.

On record, and no jokes, I think India is profoundly stupid to pursue this path. I am at a loss to discern what is in their bloody minds.

ajaybhutani

my frnd india is a democracy and with a really good media. Media dsn t leave a chance to get into information they find selling. And if theres any possibility of any such contamination of natural environment at places near normal habitat. It will come in notice and be in papers next day with the govt trying to explain why i happened. And it has never happened . ( at least not to an extent taht we may call as alarming. Bhopal was a tragedy due to The gas Leak. And if u are expecting some kind of nuke disaster in india then dont worry we a nuclear state with a good track record on nukes. Russian tech suffered because of the lack of funds. Many things got neglected and in turn led to accidents. Now tahts not the case with india.

Jay

Almost every nuclear capable nation (power as well as destruction) has a history of nuclear accidents...major and minor...incld India. Chap suggested that Bhopal is good example for bio catestrophies and how many people got affected by it, and it can be assumed as a starting point for any nuclear disasters in a populous country like India.