India will need to import uranium equivalent to produce 40,000 megawatt (mw) of power in order to meet the shortage of around 4000 megawatt (mw) of power by 2020 and become energy independent by 2050, said Anil Kakodkar, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission & Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India.
This power shortage or deficit can even go upto 400,000 mw if the conventional coal and thermal power generation capacities are not supplemented by nuclear power generation capacity.
Speaking at a seminar on Nuclear power programme and perspectives organised by Calcutta Chamber of Commerce (CCC) Kakodkar, said, “ Even after fullest use of all the energy resources available in the country in fullest optimum manner, including energy produced form the nuclear resources and implementation of all projects for capacity augmentation the country would have to face a shortage of 25-30 percent shortage in energy availability in 2050.”
Even if we import around 1.6 billion tons of coal or equivalent annually and if all the resources are used to its optimum production level, there will be a shortage of 400 gigawatt (GW) or 4000 mw in 2020 which can be met by importing Uranium enough to produce 40,000 mw of power, he said.
The shortage at 2050 will be ten times larger close to 400,000 mw which in turn will cause high import bill because of our high dependance on imports of conventional energy sources.
And even if we work for growth of electricity generation capacity using coal and other sources of energy the percentage shortage is likely to remain similar both in percentage and absolute terms since other sources have no multiplying effect like a nuclear power.
India at present have Uranium reserves which can produce around 10,000 mw of power per annum, but so far only 4000 mw of power has been produced using nuclear technology, he informed. The target of 10,000 mw can be easily met because the government has started implementation of a slew of projects, both in Singhbhum and Andhra Pradesh additional mills and mines are being put.
This apart the 540 mw unit in Tarapur has been augmented to 700 mw and the government of India has also given in-principle approval for setting up another four 700 mw units.
Thus if all the units come into operation, roughly 6,800 mw will be in place, if we add another four to five units we can easily meet the 10,000 target, said Kakodkar. Typically the overnight cost of setting up a nuclear power generation plant is close Rs 6.5 crore, pointed out Kadkodkar.
The benefit of nuclear power generation technology is that the current uranium reserve which can support production of 10, 000 mw can be recycled and used in fast breed reactors to take the capacity of power generation to 500,000 mw or 500 gigawatt (gw), that is the kind of multiplying effect that nuclear power has. At present India has 17 reactors which are operational which produce 3.8 gigawatt of power, only 2.5 percent of total capacity-another thorium reactor of 300 mw in Kalpakkam is round the corner, six additional nuclear power reactors are under construction and eight are being planned.
But some cannot operate in full capacity due to fuel shortage because despite having huge uranium resources equivalent to producing 10,000 mw, because much is not extracted due to several political and security issues.
While a 200mw unit, will require 2 rakes of coal for one year, a 200 mw nuclear power unit will require only 30 tonnes of fuel per annum.
Physical size of inventory of stock pile is also low compared to other energy sources.
Period of stock piling or maintaining stock inventory for lifetime has also been embedded in the act as a legal right, Kadkodkar added.
The nuclear option can solve the problem of energy security and independence. Importing Uranium,can meet both the short term and long term energy requirment due to its multiplying effect.
Coal, oil or other conventional energy sources on the other hand can meet the energy shortage but the import will keep increasing with demand and the deficit will not be met.
