10-point plan: Nationalise thorium resources of India and institute strategic command for protecting and conserving Nuclear Fuel complexes
Thorium reserves of India are of strategic importance for national strategic security and national energy security. The protection, conservation and sustainable use of these reserves is the primary responsibility of Govt. of India.
The reasons are simple, yet profound.
1. India accounts for a significant share of the world's reserves of thorium which is a nuclear fuel.
2. The reserves are in an easily accessible form of placer sand complexes of Manavalakurichi (Tamil Nadu), Aluva, Chavara (Kerala) and Sand Complex (Orissa) -- while most of the other nations' reserves are embedded in rocks which require elaborate processing to extract, say, one kg. of thorium from one tonne of rock minerals.
3. Protection of the thorium resources of India is as important as the Manhattan project which USA mounted to make an Atomic Bomb. Thorium blanket is used in Kamini reactor functional in Kalpakkam nuclear power station. This reactor is a fast-breeder reactor, meaning that the bred plutonium can be put to dual uses: a. as nuclear fuel for another reactor; and b. as weapons on nuclear-tipped weapons in the context of the Nation's Nuclear doctrine for the strategic security of the nation.
4. Energy needs of the country need to be met by nuclear reactors. Future development of fast-breeder nuclear reactors in India will have to depend upon indigenously available thorium resources which can meet the energy needs of the country for the foreseeable several centuries using fuel from fast-breeder reactors. India possesses the strategic advantage in thorium nuclear technology as one of only four nations of the globe with such competence: USA, France, Japan and India. India has the potential to export fast-breeder thorium-based nuclear reactors to other nations of the world.
These factors lead a policy imperative of declaring thorium reserves as the nation's strategic reserves. Such a policy will necessitate the following immediate steps to protect, and conserve the reserves.
1. Thorium-producing placer minerals [Monazite, Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, and mineral complexes such as thorite(ThSiO4), thorianite (ThO2 + UO2)] together with uranium minerals should be excluded from the purview of privatisation under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation Act, 1957) and Indian Atomic Energy Act 1948. These resources should be specified in the Central List of Part XI of the Indian Constitution. (See Heavy minerals of economic importance: ilmenite, leucoxene, rutile, zircon, monazite, xenotime, kyanite, sillimanite, andalusite, staurolite, garnet, chromite, magnetite, cassiterite, columbitetantalite, wolframite, scheelite)http://www.bgr.bund.de/DE/Themen/Min_rohstoffe/Downloads/heavy-minerals-economic-importance.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5)
2. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation Act, 1957) should be amended for this purpose together with a mandate for setting up a Mines Regulatory Authority similar to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or Insurance Regulatory Authority of India. This is to ensure that any complex minerals which have the potential to produce thorium should be allowed to be mined and conserved with provisos for extraction and delivery of processed thorium to the agencies of Atomic Energy Commission.
3. Considering the strategic importance, the select areas with thorium minerals (e.g. Manavalakurichi, Aluva, Chavara, Orissa Sand Complex) should be declared as exclusive zones and brought under the security cover of India's Armed Forces (Joint Army, Navy and Air Force commands). Extraction, transport and storage of the minerals should be DIRECTLY under this Joint control of this Armed Forces Nuclear Command and Atomic Energy Commission. In short, the thorium reserves should be declared national assets NOT subject to privatisation laws.
4. The thorium resources extracted so far under the privitasion laws should be nationalised with immediate effect on the lines of the Bank Nationalisation Act and the resouces handed over as Nuclear Fuel Complex to the joint control of Armed Forces Nuclear Command and Atomic Energy Commission.
5. To ensure the protection of the fragile coastlines with these strategic place deposits mineral complexes, Environmental Protection Agencies of the Central and State Governments (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa) should be co-opted as members of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency subject to regulations and discipline of the Armed Forces Command. This measure will ensure that further accumulations of the placer deposits are carefully monitored and the resources are so protected as to ensure the environmental safety of the coastline and the lives of the coastal people.
6. All trade, both internal and external in the thorium-producing placer mineral complexes should be banned and the entire thorium extracted should be brought under the control of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency subject to regulations and discipline of the Armed Forces Command. CBI should investigate illegal mining of thorium resources and bring the culprits to book with expedition. Such illegal mining should be declared an act of treason and sever punishment meted out to the guilty persons engaging in the loot using corrupt practices, in violation of the laws of the land, subverting the integrity of Central and State institutions which are expected to safeguard the nation's interests and endangering the security of the nation.
7. The Mines Regulatory Authority should be empowered to monitor and control the end use of thorium produced from the minerals complexes only for the exclusive use and control of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency.
8. Considering the strategic nature of the nuclear fuel, the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency, jointly with the Mines Regulatory Authority should be empowered to ensure the secrecy of the locations with continuing accumulations of placer deposits, and exercise control over the dissemination of information related to the nuclear fuel complexes yielding thorium. A separate unit of the Geological Survey of India should be entrusted with the responsibility of surveying and documenting the thorium-yielding mineral complex maps of the country, particularly all along the long 8000 km. coastline of the country.
9. Local communities constitute the first line of defence to ensure the protection and conservation of the strategic reserves. Local communities of the areas with the nuclear fuel complexes should be given the substantial share of the mining profits of the strategic mineral resource, as shareholders. The Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency should ensure that the distribution of such share is directly passed on to the Panchayati Raj Institutions of the nuclear fuel complex Panchayats.
10. To provide impetus to the indigenous research and development of thorium-blankets in fast-breeder reactors, a fast track R&D plan should be commissioned with the objective of providing for nuclear power generation to the extent of 50% of all electricity generation by the year 2050 and to promote the exports of the thorium-based nuclear power generation systems to other countries.
Estimated world thorium resources1
There is no international or standard classification for thorium resources and identified Th resources do not have the same meaning in terms of classification as identified U resources. Thorium is not a primary exploration target and resources are estimated in relations to uranium and rare earths resources.
Country Tonnes % of total
India 846,000 16
Turkey 744,000 14
Brazil 606,000 11
Australia 521,000 10
USA 434,000 8
Egypt 380,000 7
Norway 320,000 6
Venezuela 300,000 6
Canada 172,000 3
Russia 155,000 3
South Africa 148,000 3
China 100,000 2
Greenland 86,000 2
Finland 60,000 1
Sweden 50,000 1
Kazakhstan 50,000 1
Other countries 413,000 8
World total 5,385,000
OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2011: Resources, Production and Demand ("Red Book"), using the lower figures of any range and omitting ‘unknown’ CIS estimate.
1. Data taken from Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand, Nuclear Energy Agency (June 2008), NEA#6345 (ISBN 9789264047662). The 2009 figures are largely unchanged. Australian data from Thorium, in Australian Atlas of Minerals Resources, Mines & Processing Centres, Geoscience Australia (see below under General sources)
...
India's plans for thorium cycle
With huge resources of easily-accessible thorium and relatively little uranium, India has made utilization of thorium for large-scale energy production a major goal in its nuclear power programme, utilising a three-stage concept:
Pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) fuelled by natural uranium, plus light water reactors, producing plutonium.
Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) using plutonium-based fuel to breed U-233 from thorium. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so that further plutonium (particularly Pu-239) is produced as well as the U-233.
Advanced heavy water reactors (AHWRs) burn the U-233 and this plutonium with thorium, getting about 75% of their power from the thorium. The used fuel will then be reprocessed to recover fissile materials for recycling.
This Indian programme has moved from aiming to be sustained simply with thorium to one 'driven' with the addition of further fissile plutonium from the FBR fleet, to give greater efficiency. In 2009, despite the relaxation of trade restrictions on uranium, India reaffirmed its intention to proceed with developing the thorium cycle.
A 500 MWe prototype FBR under construction in Kalpakkam is designed to produce plutonium to enable AHWRs to breed U-233 from thorium. India is focusing and prioritizing the construction and commissioning of its sodium-cooled fast reactor fleet in which it will breed the required plutonium. This will take another 15 – 20 years and so it will still be some time before India is using thorium energy to a significant extent.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
India has adopted an ambitious and technically challenging three stage nuclear power Programme for optimum utilization of its limited uranium resources and large thorium reserves. The 1st stage consist of fuelling a series of indigenously built Pressurized
Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) with natural uranium for generating nuclear electricity and to produce fissile plutonium as a byproduct.
In the second stage, the plutonium produced in the PHWRs is utilized to generate more nuclear electricity by using it as fuel in Fast Breeder Reactors and to enhance the fissile fuel base still further by breeding more plutonium and U233 from the
Uranium and Thorium blankets respectively. Our capability towards the 2nd stage of the programme has been demonstrated by operating the Fast Breeder Test Reactor(FBTR) at Kalpakkam since 1985 and now the commencement of construction of the first prototype unit (PFBR) of a series of 500 MWe fast reactors to be commissioned by 2020 amply demonstrates our confidence in the technology. The 3rd stage would involve utilization of our vast thorium reserves for power generation by constructing Advance Heavy Water Reactors (AHWRs) which will generate almost 65% of the power from Thorium and breed
enough U233 for a self sustaining cycle.
Thus, it is implied that India has to follow a closed fuel cycle policy to ensure long term energy security. This calls for adopting Reprocessing, Conditioning & Recycle (RCR) option.
India has demonstrated its indigenous capability in the field of reprocessing of spent uranium fuel by designing, constructing and operating three reprocessing plants based on PUREX process located at Trombay, Tarapur and Kalpakkam. Feasibility of
reprocessing of irradiated thoria fuel has already been demonstrated by employing the THOREX process and reprocessing of mixed oxide fuels with uranium – plutonium and thorium are being planned. Radioactive Waste management facilities covering the entire range of activities, right from handling, treatment, conditioning, transport to storage, have been set up at all the reactor and reprocessing sites and valuable experience has been gained in design, construction, operation and maintenance of such facilities over a period of 40 years.
Fuel is the heart of a Nuclear Reactor and no indigenous nuclear power programme can sustain without regular and assured fuel supply to the reactors. BARC has mastered the fuel design and fabrication technology of fuels containing U, Pu, Th and U233. BARC produces various fuels for regular operation of CIRUS, DHRUVA, FBTR, KAMINI at its production plants at Trombay. A large plant has been set up at Tarapur for production of MOX fuels for BWR & PHWRs with provisions for mixed (U-Pu) Oxide fuel fabrication for PFBR & FBTR in future. A dedicated fuel cycle centre consisting of reprocessing, fuel fabrication and waste management along with other associated facilities has been planned exclusively for PFBR and future FBRs at Kalpakkam.
The facilities of the production plant at Tarapur are being augmented for taking up Thoria based fuel fabrication for AHWR.
In this volume of BARC Highlight, an attempt has been made to present an overview of the activities and the achievements in the field of nuclear fuel cycle during the past few years. A very simple style of writing has been adopted for a wider readership.
S. Majumdar, PK Wattal
http://www.barc.ernet.in/publications/eb/golden/nfc/preface.pdf
The country produced the world's first thorium nuclear reactor, the Kakrapar-1, in 1993, and as part of India's three-stage fuel cycle plan, a new Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is being designed, slated for operation in 2011. The country hopes to use thorium-based reactors to meet 30% of its electricity demands by 2050. S. Agarwal, "Indian Thorium Based Reactor Design Complete - By 2050 30% of Indian Electricity Will Be Generated With Thorium Based Reactors All Over the Nation," India Daily, 18 Feb 08.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/bhattacharyya1/
G. Victor Rajamanickam, Light heavy minerals on the Indian continental shelf, including beaches, pp. 13-26 in: Handbook of Marine Mineral Deposits (Marine Science) by David Spencer Cronan (Nov 24, 1999, Danvers, MA, USA, CRC Press) Source: http://tinyurl.com/d93wuf3
The reasons are simple, yet profound.
1. India accounts for a significant share of the world's reserves of thorium which is a nuclear fuel.
2. The reserves are in an easily accessible form of placer sand complexes of Manavalakurichi (Tamil Nadu), Aluva, Chavara (Kerala) and Sand Complex (Orissa) -- while most of the other nations' reserves are embedded in rocks which require elaborate processing to extract, say, one kg. of thorium from one tonne of rock minerals.
3. Protection of the thorium resources of India is as important as the Manhattan project which USA mounted to make an Atomic Bomb. Thorium blanket is used in Kamini reactor functional in Kalpakkam nuclear power station. This reactor is a fast-breeder reactor, meaning that the bred plutonium can be put to dual uses: a. as nuclear fuel for another reactor; and b. as weapons on nuclear-tipped weapons in the context of the Nation's Nuclear doctrine for the strategic security of the nation.
4. Energy needs of the country need to be met by nuclear reactors. Future development of fast-breeder nuclear reactors in India will have to depend upon indigenously available thorium resources which can meet the energy needs of the country for the foreseeable several centuries using fuel from fast-breeder reactors. India possesses the strategic advantage in thorium nuclear technology as one of only four nations of the globe with such competence: USA, France, Japan and India. India has the potential to export fast-breeder thorium-based nuclear reactors to other nations of the world.
These factors lead a policy imperative of declaring thorium reserves as the nation's strategic reserves. Such a policy will necessitate the following immediate steps to protect, and conserve the reserves.
1. Thorium-producing placer minerals [Monazite, Ilmenite, Rutile, Zircon, and mineral complexes such as thorite(ThSiO4), thorianite (ThO2 + UO2)] together with uranium minerals should be excluded from the purview of privatisation under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation Act, 1957) and Indian Atomic Energy Act 1948. These resources should be specified in the Central List of Part XI of the Indian Constitution. (See Heavy minerals of economic importance: ilmenite, leucoxene, rutile, zircon, monazite, xenotime, kyanite, sillimanite, andalusite, staurolite, garnet, chromite, magnetite, cassiterite, columbitetantalite, wolframite, scheelite)http://www.bgr.bund.de/DE/Themen/Min_rohstoffe/Downloads/heavy-minerals-economic-importance.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=5)
2. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation Act, 1957) should be amended for this purpose together with a mandate for setting up a Mines Regulatory Authority similar to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or Insurance Regulatory Authority of India. This is to ensure that any complex minerals which have the potential to produce thorium should be allowed to be mined and conserved with provisos for extraction and delivery of processed thorium to the agencies of Atomic Energy Commission.
3. Considering the strategic importance, the select areas with thorium minerals (e.g. Manavalakurichi, Aluva, Chavara, Orissa Sand Complex) should be declared as exclusive zones and brought under the security cover of India's Armed Forces (Joint Army, Navy and Air Force commands). Extraction, transport and storage of the minerals should be DIRECTLY under this Joint control of this Armed Forces Nuclear Command and Atomic Energy Commission. In short, the thorium reserves should be declared national assets NOT subject to privatisation laws.
4. The thorium resources extracted so far under the privitasion laws should be nationalised with immediate effect on the lines of the Bank Nationalisation Act and the resouces handed over as Nuclear Fuel Complex to the joint control of Armed Forces Nuclear Command and Atomic Energy Commission.
5. To ensure the protection of the fragile coastlines with these strategic place deposits mineral complexes, Environmental Protection Agencies of the Central and State Governments (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa) should be co-opted as members of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency subject to regulations and discipline of the Armed Forces Command. This measure will ensure that further accumulations of the placer deposits are carefully monitored and the resources are so protected as to ensure the environmental safety of the coastline and the lives of the coastal people.
6. All trade, both internal and external in the thorium-producing placer mineral complexes should be banned and the entire thorium extracted should be brought under the control of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency subject to regulations and discipline of the Armed Forces Command. CBI should investigate illegal mining of thorium resources and bring the culprits to book with expedition. Such illegal mining should be declared an act of treason and sever punishment meted out to the guilty persons engaging in the loot using corrupt practices, in violation of the laws of the land, subverting the integrity of Central and State institutions which are expected to safeguard the nation's interests and endangering the security of the nation.
7. The Mines Regulatory Authority should be empowered to monitor and control the end use of thorium produced from the minerals complexes only for the exclusive use and control of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency.
8. Considering the strategic nature of the nuclear fuel, the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency, jointly with the Mines Regulatory Authority should be empowered to ensure the secrecy of the locations with continuing accumulations of placer deposits, and exercise control over the dissemination of information related to the nuclear fuel complexes yielding thorium. A separate unit of the Geological Survey of India should be entrusted with the responsibility of surveying and documenting the thorium-yielding mineral complex maps of the country, particularly all along the long 8000 km. coastline of the country.
9. Local communities constitute the first line of defence to ensure the protection and conservation of the strategic reserves. Local communities of the areas with the nuclear fuel complexes should be given the substantial share of the mining profits of the strategic mineral resource, as shareholders. The Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency should ensure that the distribution of such share is directly passed on to the Panchayati Raj Institutions of the nuclear fuel complex Panchayats.
10. To provide impetus to the indigenous research and development of thorium-blankets in fast-breeder reactors, a fast track R&D plan should be commissioned with the objective of providing for nuclear power generation to the extent of 50% of all electricity generation by the year 2050 and to promote the exports of the thorium-based nuclear power generation systems to other countries.
Estimated world thorium resources1
There is no international or standard classification for thorium resources and identified Th resources do not have the same meaning in terms of classification as identified U resources. Thorium is not a primary exploration target and resources are estimated in relations to uranium and rare earths resources.
Country Tonnes % of total
India 846,000 16
Turkey 744,000 14
Brazil 606,000 11
Australia 521,000 10
USA 434,000 8
Egypt 380,000 7
Norway 320,000 6
Venezuela 300,000 6
Canada 172,000 3
Russia 155,000 3
South Africa 148,000 3
China 100,000 2
Greenland 86,000 2
Finland 60,000 1
Sweden 50,000 1
Kazakhstan 50,000 1
Other countries 413,000 8
World total 5,385,000
OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2011: Resources, Production and Demand ("Red Book"), using the lower figures of any range and omitting ‘unknown’ CIS estimate.
1. Data taken from Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand, Nuclear Energy Agency (June 2008), NEA#6345 (ISBN 9789264047662). The 2009 figures are largely unchanged. Australian data from Thorium, in Australian Atlas of Minerals Resources, Mines & Processing Centres, Geoscience Australia (see below under General sources)
...
India's plans for thorium cycle
With huge resources of easily-accessible thorium and relatively little uranium, India has made utilization of thorium for large-scale energy production a major goal in its nuclear power programme, utilising a three-stage concept:
Pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) fuelled by natural uranium, plus light water reactors, producing plutonium.
Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) using plutonium-based fuel to breed U-233 from thorium. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so that further plutonium (particularly Pu-239) is produced as well as the U-233.
Advanced heavy water reactors (AHWRs) burn the U-233 and this plutonium with thorium, getting about 75% of their power from the thorium. The used fuel will then be reprocessed to recover fissile materials for recycling.
This Indian programme has moved from aiming to be sustained simply with thorium to one 'driven' with the addition of further fissile plutonium from the FBR fleet, to give greater efficiency. In 2009, despite the relaxation of trade restrictions on uranium, India reaffirmed its intention to proceed with developing the thorium cycle.
A 500 MWe prototype FBR under construction in Kalpakkam is designed to produce plutonium to enable AHWRs to breed U-233 from thorium. India is focusing and prioritizing the construction and commissioning of its sodium-cooled fast reactor fleet in which it will breed the required plutonium. This will take another 15 – 20 years and so it will still be some time before India is using thorium energy to a significant extent.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
India has adopted an ambitious and technically challenging three stage nuclear power Programme for optimum utilization of its limited uranium resources and large thorium reserves. The 1st stage consist of fuelling a series of indigenously built Pressurized
Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) with natural uranium for generating nuclear electricity and to produce fissile plutonium as a byproduct.
In the second stage, the plutonium produced in the PHWRs is utilized to generate more nuclear electricity by using it as fuel in Fast Breeder Reactors and to enhance the fissile fuel base still further by breeding more plutonium and U233 from the
Uranium and Thorium blankets respectively. Our capability towards the 2nd stage of the programme has been demonstrated by operating the Fast Breeder Test Reactor(FBTR) at Kalpakkam since 1985 and now the commencement of construction of the first prototype unit (PFBR) of a series of 500 MWe fast reactors to be commissioned by 2020 amply demonstrates our confidence in the technology. The 3rd stage would involve utilization of our vast thorium reserves for power generation by constructing Advance Heavy Water Reactors (AHWRs) which will generate almost 65% of the power from Thorium and breed
enough U233 for a self sustaining cycle.
Thus, it is implied that India has to follow a closed fuel cycle policy to ensure long term energy security. This calls for adopting Reprocessing, Conditioning & Recycle (RCR) option.
India has demonstrated its indigenous capability in the field of reprocessing of spent uranium fuel by designing, constructing and operating three reprocessing plants based on PUREX process located at Trombay, Tarapur and Kalpakkam. Feasibility of
reprocessing of irradiated thoria fuel has already been demonstrated by employing the THOREX process and reprocessing of mixed oxide fuels with uranium – plutonium and thorium are being planned. Radioactive Waste management facilities covering the entire range of activities, right from handling, treatment, conditioning, transport to storage, have been set up at all the reactor and reprocessing sites and valuable experience has been gained in design, construction, operation and maintenance of such facilities over a period of 40 years.
Fuel is the heart of a Nuclear Reactor and no indigenous nuclear power programme can sustain without regular and assured fuel supply to the reactors. BARC has mastered the fuel design and fabrication technology of fuels containing U, Pu, Th and U233. BARC produces various fuels for regular operation of CIRUS, DHRUVA, FBTR, KAMINI at its production plants at Trombay. A large plant has been set up at Tarapur for production of MOX fuels for BWR & PHWRs with provisions for mixed (U-Pu) Oxide fuel fabrication for PFBR & FBTR in future. A dedicated fuel cycle centre consisting of reprocessing, fuel fabrication and waste management along with other associated facilities has been planned exclusively for PFBR and future FBRs at Kalpakkam.
The facilities of the production plant at Tarapur are being augmented for taking up Thoria based fuel fabrication for AHWR.
In this volume of BARC Highlight, an attempt has been made to present an overview of the activities and the achievements in the field of nuclear fuel cycle during the past few years. A very simple style of writing has been adopted for a wider readership.
S. Majumdar, PK Wattal
http://www.barc.ernet.in/publications/eb/golden/nfc/preface.pdf
The country produced the world's first thorium nuclear reactor, the Kakrapar-1, in 1993, and as part of India's three-stage fuel cycle plan, a new Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is being designed, slated for operation in 2011. The country hopes to use thorium-based reactors to meet 30% of its electricity demands by 2050. S. Agarwal, "Indian Thorium Based Reactor Design Complete - By 2050 30% of Indian Electricity Will Be Generated With Thorium Based Reactors All Over the Nation," India Daily, 18 Feb 08.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2011/ph241/bhattacharyya1/
G. Victor Rajamanickam, Light heavy minerals on the Indian continental shelf, including beaches, pp. 13-26 in: Handbook of Marine Mineral Deposits (Marine Science) by David Spencer Cronan (Nov 24, 1999, Danvers, MA, USA, CRC Press) Source: http://tinyurl.com/d93wuf3
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