Uranium shortage hits nuclear plans

India's nuclear energy ambitions have hit a major roadblock as shortage of the raw material "" uranium "" is threatening new capacity addition and also affecting the performance of the existing plants.

According to the present availability, the uranium reserves in the country can sustain 10,000 Mw of capacity. The current capacity of the country is a little over 4,000 Mw.

"The future of India's nuclear power expansion plans rest on availability of the fuel," said SK Jain, chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL).

Out of the existing 17 reactors, except for the oldest two boiled water reactors(BWR) at Tarapur, the rest are pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), fuelled by indigenously sourced uranium.

Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) supplies the fuel to NPCIL, mainly sourced from the uranium ores at Singbhum East district of Jharkhand. Though UCIL could find some small reserves at Meghalaya and Andhra Pradesh, the mines at Singbhum are the main source for uranium.

Jain said the capacity utlilisation of the atomic power plants in the country, called plant load factor (PLF), in the recent months were far less than the last year's PLF of 63 per cent.

The low PLF is mainly due to the shut down of a uranium processing plant at Jaduguda in Jharkhand which had a daily processing capacity of over 2,000 tonnes of ore. With new processing capacities added, availability of uranium for NPCIL is likely to double by next month, he said.

"There is a growing mis-match between our demand and supply of uranium. Unless we are lucky to explore new reserves, shortage of fuel may jeopardise our nuclear energy growth plans. The government should take appropriate measures to ensure imports of the fuel," he said.

Another option before India is to upgrade to the fast breeder reactors that use thorium as fuel, which is the second phase of growth for India's nuclear energy strategy.

Currently, NPCIL is developing a 500 Mw indigenously developed fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam, which is to reach criticality schedule only by September 2010. Commercial utlilisation of such a technology, which will upgrade India's nuclear power capabilities at par with global standards, is at least a decade away.

Nuclear plants with a total capacity of 2,660 Mw are under construction at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan (2 units of 220 Mw each), Kaiga in Karnataka (220 Mw) and at Kudamkulam in Tamil Nadu (2 units of 1000 Mw).

During the 11th Plan period, NPCIL hopes to add 8 pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) of 700 Mw each at the existing locations to optimise the infrastructure in place besides a 1,000 Mw mega project at Jaithalpur in Maharashtra and the 500 Mw fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam.