Mumbai: India today announced it has designed a new version of Advanced Heavy Water atomic reactor which will use lesser low enriched uranium along with thorium as fuel and having next generation safety requirements.

Mumbai: India today announced it has designed a new version of Advanced Heavy Water atomic reactor which will use lesser low enriched uranium along with thorium as fuel and having next generation safety requirements.

Thorium Power, a US-based nuclear energy company, has signed an agreement with Punj Lloyd, one of the leading engineering and construction companies in India, to form a joint venture (JV).

MUMBAI: India may be waiting for the US Congress to clear the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal so that the country can begin importing uranium from the NSG countries, but that doesn

HYDERABAD

Andhra Pradesh is emerging as the uranium and thorium hub of the country with new reserves of these rare minerals being unearthed in Chittoor and Warangal districts. Uranium has been found in Kadapa and Nalgonda districts while thorium reserves have been discovered in Visakhapatnam , Prakasam and Nalgonda districts.

India's continuing progress in scientific field is commendable. Our scientists have found out the formula which would produce electricity from thorium. Scientists have completed the first phase of ambitious project of producing electricity from thorium. Having a little capacity the main aim of this facility is to design parameter of thorium reactor of 300mw power project. The scientists team which has got preliminary success in producing electricity from thorium, deserves all accolades.

India has an ambitious plan, the vision 2020, to become one of the most developed and advanced countries of the world. For achievement of Vision 2020, India needs to have development at the rate of 10pc. The country will need a large quantum of energy to run its enormous infrastructures. The present conventional source of energy from the fossil fuel is insufficient to fulfil the future demand of the country. The deposits of the fossil fuel are limited, that too would be consumed in the next 50 years. The fissile element uranium would only be the future source of energy. Uranium is a radioactive fissile element which was named after the planet Uranus by its discoverer Klaproth in the year 1789. In the year 1901, Sir Thomas Holland reported the presence of uranium in Gaya dist and Singhbhumi in Bihar. Unfortunately India has very little deposit of uranium. Nevertheless there is a huge deposit of thorium in Travancore in the seacoast of Kerala. At present thorium cannot be used as nuclear fuel as it requires some scientific processing, hectic researches are going on by the scientists but no dependable method to use thorium has been evolved up till now. It will take many years to develop some process to use thorium as an atomic fuel. But, sooner or later, thorium will become missile element like uranium. India requires uranium and the latest advanced technology in nuclear science which only the US and other advanced countries of the nuclear club can provide. America, on the other hand, has its own post-cold war global foreign policy in which India stands as its natural allay in their assessment. India is going to be the global player in the world economy, next after China and the US. China has a plan to surpass the US in future economic and political scenario and posing a threat to the unipolar status of the super power America. The future nuclear fuel demand of India and the future foreign policy of the US has made the nuclear deal imperative for both big democracies of the world. In this process India and US signed 123 agreement which is a part of the nuclear deal. India needs to have a safeguard agreement with the nuclear watchdog - the IAEA on specific safeguards which is very essential because of the sensibility of the n-deal in order to prevent nuke proliferation. RK Gupta

Ironically, the upgrade involves a technology that is being discarded worldwide due to its poor safety record and complicated processes

Thorium in the sands of Kerala s Chavara Neendakara area alters DNA sequence of the local population

An alternative to conventional uranium and plutonium reactors might be immune to the problems that have plagued the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

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