Inking the Nuclear Cooperation Agreement paves the way for Canadian uranium to reach India

The governments of India and Canada have taken another step towards full implementation of their bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (NCA), paving the way for Canadian uranium to reach India. Joe Oliver, federal minister of natural resources, announced yesterday that officials from the two countries had signed an ‘Appropriate Arrangement’ as part of the nuclear agreement. He said so at the headquarters of Canada’s largest uranium producer, Cameco Corporation, in Saskatoon, a city in the province of Saskatchewan.

Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL) has denied allegation by a Sri Lankan interest group that the Kudankulam plant in Tamil Nadu was leaking radiation, and said the phase 1 of the project would be ready soon and power production would start by April-end.

The Sri Lankan group, the People's Movement Against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, on Saturday alleged that the plant had been leaking radiation since February 27. "There has not been any radiation leakage from the Kudankulam project. Already, the Indian high commission in Sri Lanka as well as the ministry of external affairs have denied the allegation," R S Sundar, Kudankulam project site director, told Business Standard.

With Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's announcement on negotiations for a nuclear energy agreement with Britian, companies from that country are expected to initiate talks with Nuclear Power Corporat

Iran is converting some of its higher-grade enriched uranium into reactor fuel, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

A bill to lift a decadeslong ban on uranium mining in Virginia was withdrawn Thursday just before a state Senate panel vote where it was expected to be defeated.

Jamshedpur: Uranium Corporation of India (UCIL), the sole domestic nuclear fuel provider to the country’s indigenously built nuclear reactors, is poised to start a giant uranium mining-cum-processing project in Kanampalle.

The company is already on the verge of completing its 3,000-tpd mine-cum-processing plant at Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh. To be taken up on full completion of the Tummalapalle expansion project, the neighbouring Kanampalle project is slated to be a “very, very big” project of around 6,000 tpd, three times the size of its largest and most modern 2,000-tpd Narwapahar mine.

SHILLONG: The Travelling International Uranium Film Festival India 2013 has chosen Shillong as one of the cities to showcase films on the different aspect of Uranium mining and Nuclear Energy in the world.

This two-day event will be inaugurated tomorrow in the city. International Uranium Film Festival is a global event organised by the Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janerio, Brazil and in India it is being held in collaboration with an Indian filmmaker Shriprakash.

In the last lap of its first approach to criticality, the first unit (1000 MWe) of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu is undergoing a battery of tests by engineers of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

R.K. Sinha, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, told The Hindu that the NPCIL engineers were busy, performing “high pressure and temperature tests.”
Additional tests

The Tummalapalle mine in Andhra Pradesh, commissioned in April, will help meet India’s demand for natural uranium, used in indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors.

Iran is set to sharply expand its uranium enrichment in an underground plant after installing all the centrifuges it was built for, a UN report said, a move likely to increase Western alarm about T