India is close to developing a prototype of a thorium-fuelled Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) which could help solve many of India’s pressing energy problems. Thorium burns minimal radioactive waste and releases less carbon dioxide .
The design for the AHWR is in place but the key problem of locating a site and gaining all the regulatory and environmental clearances from the ministry of environment & forests which are mandatorily required before the actual construction work for this reactor will begin.
The problem of finding a site will prove to be difficult, according to sources in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), given the current anti-nuclear environment prevalent in the country today.
Following the Jaitapur stir, the positions of the farmers and other community members has hardened even though there is no danger of a melt down from thorium such as what took place in Chernobyl. Also, thorium is not suitable for the production of a weapon grade material.
India has the largest thorium mineral reserves in the world which are to the tune of over 360,000 tonnes.
Barc would prefer the reactor to be located close to an existing nuclear power plant but they are open to other locations as well. Construction of a reactor is a slow process and will take a minimum of six years for it to become operational. Thorium reactors are expected to generate only a quarter of the energy that a new reactor will generate. But a workable thorium reactor is perceived as being a huge energy breakthrough.
But not all the technology glitches have been removed. For one, scientists claim that one problem that is being worked is how to trigger the fuel in order to start an operation. With India now being in a position to import uranium, it now can use low-enriched uranium to get the reactor operational.
Barc scientists point out that the advantage of using uranium is that these reactors can also be exported as they will be in a position to generate plutonium which can be used to make nuclear weapons.
Uranium is depleting at a very rapid pace. But this is not the case with thorium of which there are much larger reserves. The fear with both uranium and plutonium is the dangers of their falling into the hands of terrorists. This is not the fear with this mineral.