Deal inked with US, India can reprocess spent n-fuel

[LETHALFORCE]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Deal-inked-with-US--India-can-reprocess-spent-n-fuel/654428

Clearing one of the last hurdles in the operationalisation of the landmark civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries, India and the United States have formalised an understanding that will allow New Delhi to reprocess American nuclear fuel after having used it in its nuclear power plants.

The reprocessing agreement has been signed by India's ambassador in Washington Meera Shankar and United States Under Secretary for Political Affairs Bill Burns on Friday evening, a US government statement said.

Reprocessing involves the separation of plutonium from the spent fuel, to be re-used in other reactors. Since plutonium can also be used as the fissile core in a nuclear weapon, access to reprocessing technology or the right to do so is generally not forthcoming. So far, the US has granted such reprocessing right only to the European Union and Japan.

The agreement envisages setting up of separate and dedicated reprocessing facilities in India for this purpose. Both these facilities as well as the reprocessed fuel will be have to be designated to be used only for civilian purposes and kept open for international scrutiny according to the provisions of the safeguards agreement India signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Though India cannot use plutonium generated through the reprocessing of spent uranium fuel for military use, access to this plutonium would enable it to divert more of its domestically produced plutonium for the strategic programme.

"With this we have taken another significant step forward in the implementation of our bilateral agreement for cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Meera Shankar said after signing the agreement.

With the reprocessing agreement out of the way, the last remaining hurdle in the participation of US companies in India's nuclear power market is the civil nuclear liability legislation that New Delhi is still to enact. The Indian government is likely to seek Parliament's approval for the liability legislation under preparation, in the current session itself.

India has already designated two sites, one each in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, to be developed as nuclear parks in collaboration with the United States.

"The Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative has facilitated significant new commercial opportunities across India's multi-billion dollar nuclear energy market, including the designation of two nuclear reactor park sites for US technology in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat," the US government statement said.

"Increased civil nuclear trade with India will create thousands of new jobs for the US economy while helping India to meet its rising energy needs in an environmentally responsible way by reducing the growth of carbon emissions," it said.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/399...ssing-agreement-pact-obama-visit-to-india.htm

US, India sign pact on nuclear reprocessing by new plants

The last requirement ahead of the November visit of U.S. President Obama was fulfilled with the signing of the "Arrangements and Procedures" Agreement in Washington D.C. on Friday by India's Ambassador Meera Shankar and William Burns of the U.S. State Department.

The agreement enables India to reprocess nuclear fuel from reactors sold by US companies to reprocessing facilities in India, subject to supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"The ball is now in India's court," a US official said referring to the passage of Nuclear Liability Bill by the Indian parliament which is listed in the agenda of ongoing monsoon session that assures protection of consumers in case of a nuclear accident. The Left parties are opposing the Bill.

With the agreement, the US companies, Russian, French and British nuclear energy firms will be allowed to compete in India's lucrative nuclear energy market which is estimated at $100 billion over the next 20 years, said a report in Business Standard.

India is planning to increase its nuclear energy from the current 6,000 MW to 35,000 MW by 2022 and to 60,000 MW by 2032.

Congratulating negotiators, Indian envoy Meera Shankar said, "This early completion in some sense reflects how our two countries are increasingly getting into the habit of working together."

Once the Bill is passed, allocation of sites to the US companies in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, Russian firms in Kudamkulam in Tamil Nadu and Haripur in West Bengal, French firms in Jaitapur in Maharashtra will be finalized.

India is third after the European Union and Japan to get the U.S. nod for nuclear fuel reprocessing by firms within the country.

 

[ajtr]

My Question is---Can india use reprocessed usa fuel across any of the reactors which are under IAEA safeguards or is it that india has to use usa fuel only in the reactors which comes from it?

 

[LETHALFORCE]

My Question is---Can india use reprocessed usa fuel across any of the reactors which are under IAEA safeguards or is it that india has to use usa fuel only in the reactors which comes from it?

This deal is most likely for US reactors only but we have the same deal with French and Russians for the reactors they are building;so at this point it looks like 100% reprocessing has been achieved by the Indian govt.

 

[ajtr]

This deal is most likely for US reactors only but we have the same deal with French and Russians for the reactors they are building;so at this point it looks like 100% reprocessing has been achieved by the Indian govt.

Is that means that india has to construct country specific reprocessing plants???

 

[ajtr]

India, US sign final nuclear pact, prepare for Obama visit​

Jyoti Malhotra / Washington August 1, 2010, 0:26 IST
The stage has been set for a four-day November visit to India by United States President Barack Obama with the signature on Friday of a nuclear reprocessing pact that finally eliminates all obstacles and allows US companies to commence nuclear trade with India.

India's ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, and America's top diplomat, William Burns, signed the 'Arrangements and Procedures' document at a small ceremony at the US State Department here, a leftover but an integral piece of legislation that will now be added to the 2008 India-US civil nuclear agreement which allowed India to become the world's newest de facto nuclear weapons power.But since the Indo-US nuclear deal was largely seen in India as a sweetheart deal on part of the Bush administration, the Indian elite chose to reserve judgement on Obama, his successor, until they had seen concrete evidence of the much-hyped 'partnership' between the two countries.
The signature of assent, on the remnant but crucial piece of legislation relating to the civil nuclear deal, is evidence of Obama's conviction that the time has come to launch "a brand new era, characterised by joint cooperation in innovation, education and other challenging new frontiers" with India, said US officials here on condition of anonymity.

This latest agreement allows India to reprocess nuclear fuel from reactors sold by US companies to India — such as General Electric and Westinghouse — in a reprocessing facility built in India, which will be safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The US officials also pointed out, however, that India would now have to pass the Nuclear Liability Bill in Parliament, which protects consumers in case of a nuclear accident as well as charges the operator with damages, before the civil nuclear deal could be fully completed.

"The ball is now in India's court," a US official said.

The deal will now allow these US companies to compete with Russia and France — and lately the UK — in India's lucrative nuclear energy market which is estimated at $100 billion over the next 20 years. India has vowed to expand its nuclear energy capacity from the current lowly 6,000 megawatt (Mw) to 35,000 Mw by 2022 and 65,000 Mw by 2032.

US companies have already been allocated two sites in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh (the Russians have been allocated a new site at Kudamkulam in Tamil Nadu and Haripur in West Bengal, while the French have been given the Jaitapur site in Maharashtra) to build their nuclear plants, but had been hamstrung by the lack of this legislation to finalise their plans for an India entry.

Significantly, India is only the third after Japan and the European nuclear agency, Euratom, with which the US has signed such a nuclear reprocessing agreement.

Indian officials agreed that with this piece of legislation Obama has not only signalled that he agrees with the Bush administration's decision to break the old mould and create a new partnership with India, but that he intends to shatter the stereotype prevalent both in New Delhi and Washington that a Democrat administration is only interested in lecturing India about "human rights violations in Kashmir or reinventing the India-Pakistan hyphen," the officials said.

As both sides breathed a sigh of relief at the signing of the agreement, they pointed out that it had set the stage for Obama's visit to India in November.

 

[ajtr]

Atomic agency hits upon more uranium​

Chennai, July 30, DHNS:

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Srikumar Banerjee said on Friday that the commission has stumbled on more uranium in the country. The find, he hoped, will considerably revitalise India's indigenous nuclear power programme.

The Department of Atomic Energy's Atomic Mineral Division has confirmed that the uranium mine at Tumalapalli in Andhra Pradesh has three times more mining potential at 45,000 tonnes of uranium per annum against the initial estimate of just 15,000 tonnes, Dr Banerjee told reporters here after inaugurating DAE's latest supercomputer, "Annapurna".

While the current assessed total quantity of uranium availability in India is placed at 140,000 tonnes, including at Jaduguda mines in Chattisgarh, the significantly extra find at Tumalapalli mines has come as a shot in the arm for the DAE. How much uranium can be mined without causing damage to the environment is yet to be addressed.

The second uranium mines at Jaduguda and the new refining mills there have also begun operation, while India also imported some quantities of the mineral used as fuel in our pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) from Russia and Kazakhstan, he disclosed.

Though the capacity factor in India's nuclear power reactors, both indigenously built PHWRs and the safeguarded reactors, had slid from a high level of 90 per cent in recent years due to uranium shortage, the recent developments on the fuel front could help "to substantially increase" the plant capacity factor to 70 per cent in the near future.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Is that means that india has to construct country specific reprocessing plants???

The reprocessing plants will be Indian design/technology the fuel will be country specific, where the accountability will all be monitored by IAEA. This is only for the civilian reactors allowing this will reduce the costs dramatically by allowing the fuel to be reprocessed and reused as well as eliminating many storage and waste costs that would have come if this agreement was not reached.

 

[ajtr]

LF,
Any idea about how much per KW of electricity it gonna cost from nuke plants?...The reason i'm asking this question coz of this news item...

http://djysrv.blogspot.com/2010/07/areva-under-pressure.html

The new cost estimate for the reactor is now reported to be [E]5 billion ($6.5 billion or about $4,000/Kw).

$4K/KW is exorbitant cost.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

LF,
Any idea about how much per KW of electricity it gonna cost from nuke plants?...The reason i'm asking this question coz of this news item...



$4K/KW is exorbitant cost.

This reactor is suppose to be cost effective running upto 60 years.This is the initial overnight cost, here is some more info

http://www.areva-np.com/scripts/info/publigen/content/templates/show.asp?P=867&L=US&SYNC=Y

http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/industry-insight/building-cost-effective-future-nuclear

 

[anoop_mig25]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Deal-inked-with-US--India-can-reprocess-spent-n-fuel/654428

Clearing one of the last hurdles in the operationalisation of the landmark civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries, India and the United States have formalised an understanding that will allow New Delhi to reprocess American nuclear fuel after having used it in its nuclear power plants.

The reprocessing agreement has been signed by India's ambassador in Washington Meera Shankar and United States Under Secretary for Political Affairs Bill Burns on Friday evening, a US government statement said.

Reprocessing involves the separation of plutonium from the spent fuel, to be re-used in other reactors. Since plutonium can also be used as the fissile core in a nuclear weapon, access to reprocessing technology or the right to do so is generally not forthcoming. So far, the US has granted such reprocessing right only to the European Union and Japan.

The agreement envisages setting up of separate and dedicated reprocessing facilities in India for this purpose. Both these facilities as well as the reprocessed fuel will be have to be designated to be used only for civilian purposes and kept open for international scrutiny according to the provisions of the safeguards agreement India signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Though India cannot use plutonium generated through the reprocessing of spent uranium fuel for military use, access to this plutonium would enable it to divert more of its domestically produced plutonium for the strategic programme.

"With this we have taken another significant step forward in the implementation of our bilateral agreement for cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Meera Shankar said after signing the agreement.

With the reprocessing agreement out of the way, the last remaining hurdle in the participation of US companies in India's nuclear power market is the civil nuclear liability legislation that New Delhi is still to enact. The Indian government is likely to seek Parliament's approval for the liability legislation under preparation, in the current session itself.

India has already designated two sites, one each in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, to be developed as nuclear parks in collaboration with the United States.

"The Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative has facilitated significant new commercial opportunities across India's multi-billion dollar nuclear energy market, including the designation of two nuclear reactor park sites for US technology in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat," the US government statement said.

"Increased civil nuclear trade with India will create thousands of new jobs for the US economy while helping India to meet its rising energy needs in an environmentally responsible way by reducing the growth of carbon emissions," it said.

my question has americans agreed to provide us with ENT TECHNOLOGY/re-processing technology.i mean would they give us their technology or with are going to use our

 

[ganesh177]

Offtopic : What are the proposed sites for canadian plants ?

 

[LETHALFORCE]

my question has americans agreed to provide us with ENT TECHNOLOGY/re-processing technology.i mean would they give us their technology or with are going to use our

USA must have plans to sell some ENR technology since they ok'd it?? India has indigenous reprocessing technology and Russians and French have included reprocessing technology in their separate nuclear deals with India.