Hidden from public, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal at Kalpakkam near Chennai, Indian nuclear scientists are in the final throes of starting a high-tech giant stove more than 15 years in the making. This novel nuclear reactor is a kind of an akshaya patra, the mythical goblet with a never-ending supply of food. The Indian Department of Atomic Energy is getting ready to commission its ultra-modern indigenously designed and locally mastered fast-breeder reactor. Experts say to make nuclear energy sustainable, one way is to make fast-breeder reactors mainstream.
Yukiya Amano, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna, says fast reactors can help extract up to 70% more energy than traditional reactors and are safer than traditional reactors while reducing long lived radioactive waste by several fold. Easier said than done, since these reactors are also notoriously unstable and hence difficult to run reliably over long periods. Called a Fast-Breeder Reactor, these are a special kind of nuclear reactors that generate more atomic fuel than they consume as they work. India has been running an experimental facility called a Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) now for 27 years. This is a small nuclear reactor a forerunner for the monster that India has constructed at Kalpakkam called the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR). This will generate electricity commercially using the fast breeder route.
The only commercially operating fast breeder reactor in the world is situated in the Ural Mountains of Russia at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant, not far from the Russian fourth largest city Yekateringburg. The Russians today are the global leaders in fast-breeder reactors having operated a fast breeder reactor called BN 600 since 1980 (37 years). In 2016, the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom commercially commissioned its big brother, the BN 800 fast breeder reactor producing about 800 MW of electricity and supplies the city nearby. Read on.
Managed & Built by I2M Consulting, LLC | © 2010-
