A Roadmap to Transform India into a Nuclear Power Based Economy

[trackwhack]

This is my vision of the route that the Dept of Atomic Energy must take to move our country away from a hydrocarbon economy to a nuclear and renewable resource based economy.
Objective: To achieve power generation capacity of 300 GW through nuclear power by 2050
Approach
a) Offshore Mega Nuclear Installations – Target 140 + GW
b) Modular Underwater Nuclear Installations – Target 120 GW
c) Coastal Fuel Breeder Nuclear Installations – Target 40 - 80 GW


1. Offshore Mega Nuclear Installations
High Voltage DC transmission results in losses of less than 3% per 1000 kilometers. Based on this principle, creating massive nuclear installations in offshore locations is viable both from a scalability as well as risk (or lack of it) perspective. The primary objective of megaplants would be to power the industrial sector that typically requires high density power.
These are four prospective locations
a. Cherbaniani Reef: Lying approximately 350 to 400 KM away from Mangalore, Margoa and Talasshery of the western coast of India, this Lagoon is the northernmost in the Lakshadweep Archipelagos. The closest inhabited island is Cheltah island which is 120 km away. The lagoon area is 172 square kilometers with very little land area. Due to the entire lagoon being extremely shallow, creating an artificial island of 5 sq kilometers will result in a total cost of not more than 3 billion USD. Creation of the island itself needs to be done in a phased manner spread across 30 years as the plant reaches full capacity thereby offsetting the cost of island creation through revenue of the plant.

Timeline
2020 – Island Area : 1.5 square KM, Power generation : 0 MW
2025 – Island Area: 2 Sq KM, Power generation 3000 MW
2030 – Island Area 3 Sq KM, Power Generation 10,000 MW
2040 – Island Area 5 Sq KM, Power generation – 40,000 MW

Due to the remote location, this plant could be scaled much larger to approach 100, 000 or more if by then newer and more efficient sources of energy have not become technologically feasible.

The red lines indicate possible distribution centers receiving power.

b. Chank Tapu and Nora Tapu Reefs in the Gulf of Kutch: These reefs lie approximately 20 KM off the closest coastal point of a very sparsely populated Kutch. The closest population centre is Jamnagar which is more than 60 KM away. As above landill costs to create an artificial island on the reef would be approximately the same, maybe a little lesser as there is already some land above sea level and the water is more shallow.

The timelines would be very similar to the above and hence a targeted generation capacity of 40,000 MW by 2040

Proximity to Pakistan is a concern but in the event of war, my assumption is that India will completely flatten the Pukes and gain territory we have to accept some collateral damage anyway.


c. Hare Island off the coast of TN: This island is only 5-6 KM away from the mainland and hence I would restrict it to a 20,000 MW plant but timelines would be much tighter targeting completion by 2030

d. Wheeler Island Cluster: This islet cluster is also close to the coastline but away from population centers and hence 40,000 MW can be targeted. As there are already many islets, only minimal reclamation costs will be involved.

The size of India's economy in 2040 would be such that creating completely new artificial islands to house offshore mega plants like these would become relatively cheap as an investment and beyond 2040, that decision would be completely dependent on the technological feasibility of alternate energy systems.

Continued in the next post"¦.

 

[trackwhack]

Modular underwater nuclear Installations
While the mega plant approach is to power industry, the modular approach is to primarily power domestic requirements. The idea is to build submarine size reactor modules that can be buried in ocean water at depths of around 100 meters generating 200 – 300 MW of power enough to support a city of more than 1 million people at current consumption rates. Assuming that the energy consumption of the average Indian goes up 5 fold over the next 30 years, each module will still be able to power 20,000 people or 50,000 homes. These modules are built in a way as to be able to retrieve them for maintenance and refueling. The fuel cycle lifespan basis the AHWR design should be about 8 years and the reactor lifespan would be 60 years or more.
France's DCNS has already begun work on such a system based on the PWR reactor (Google please). Its no rocket science. We already have put an 80MW reactor to power the Arihant. A much smaller module can house a reactor, turbine and generator to produce 300 MW of power safely buried under the ocean.
400 such reactors can produce a total of 120 GW of power. To put this in perspective, all of India today consumes 185 GW of power. Once assembly line based production is initiated, each system could be manufactured at under 200 million dollars. That translates to a cost of 80 billion to generate 120 GW of power. Add to this 50% overhead costs for maintenance and manufacturing infrastructure and the result is still power generation costing 1 billion dollars per installed GWE with a life span of 60 years. Fuel costs extra but with our Thorium resources, it would be negligible.

An Artists impression of France's modular reactors.

To be continued.

 

[Payeng]

Great work, awaiting for discussion when you finish it.

Added later: hell I never mind the time, will discuss it later on.

 

[trackwhack]

Coastal Fuel Breeder Nuclear Installations – Target 40 - 80 GW

Nuclear energy is a viable option only if we can breed fuel. Only 7% of natural Uranium is useful fissionable material. And zero % of Thorium is fissionable. In order to use 100%, we need to breed Uranium or Thorium in breeder reactors, which along with producing power executes the even more important task of breeder nuclear fuel to power other reactors. All the thorium in India is useless but when bred to Uranium 233, there is enough thorium to provide India with thousands of years of power or in other words, we become a net energy exporter.
The cycle of a breeder reactor is fuelling the reactor, running the reactor, retrieving the bred fuel, reprocessing and making new fuel. Due to this complexity it would be better that these plants are based onshore on coastal location thereby making logistics of personnel, equipment, fuel, ore etc easier. Kalpakkam, Koondakulam and Jaitapur are all located on the coast. Even Kaiga is located very close to the coast. All these plants should be over time converted to breeder reactors – breeding both uranium and thorium.
Assuming 20% trigger fuel required for Thorium based reactors, it would mean about 40,000 MW breeder reactor capacity to support 200 GW of thorium reactors. Since we will also have uranium reactors, the total breeder capacity should be about 60,000 MW or 60 GW.
The Kalpakkam breeder has been going through multiple delays. It was supposed to go live in 2011 but there are further delays and now it is expected to go critical in 2013. Let us hope we get it right as this is the most important cog in the nuclear chain.

An alternative approach would be to substitute all the solid fuel reactors with LFTR's but until this technology is demonstrated, nothing can be said for sure.

Either way, solid or liquid fuel, India's energy security depends on non carbon based systems. And nuclear energy is an indispensible part of such a syste, I just hope DAE has the right vision from an implementation perspective.

 

[KS]

All the places mentioned are protected marine locations and coral reef locations and situating a nuke power plant will be an environmental disaster.

The arid Deccan plateau must be utilized fully and nuclear power parks must be established there with supply lines to rest of the country. Even the deserts of Rajasthan can be utilized. In case of Rajasthan there will be concerns about the safety in case of war with Pakistan..but it must be made clear to Paks that an attack on the nuke plants will be considered as NFS and will be responded with a disproportionate and massive second strike..

 

[trackwhack]

All the places mentioned are protected marine locations and coral reef locations and situating a nuke power plant will be an environmental disaster.

The arid Deccan plateau must be utilized fully and nuclear power parks must be established there with supply lines to rest of the country. Even the deserts of Rajasthan can be utilized. In case of Rajasthan there will be concerns about the safety in case of war with Pakistan..but it must be made clear to Paks that an attack on the nuke plants will be considered as NFS and will be responded with a disproportionate and massive second strike..

We have thousands upon thousands of square kilometers of coastal and marine life. Come up with something better than a two liner dissing the post. I am willing to have a reasonable debate with someone who has done some research and is willing to contribute as I know there are possibly many alternatives. You want to put up 300 GWE of nuclear plants in the heart of the country? Are you freaking crazy man? That is 100 times the current installed capacity and your AMMA and her cronies are not allowing even a 2000 MW plant on the southern most tip of the country located on an isolated coast to go critical. Think a little before posting nonsense. Deccan my foot.



And, how exactly is putting a nuclear power station an environmental disaster. Please, share your wisdom, I am desperate to know what only you and no other physicist knows.