Nuclear Power in India

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Central Chronicle - Madhya Pradesh's News Portal


'India, Canada to finalise nuke agreement soon'



Toronto, May 27:
India and Canada will soon finalise the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that will pave the way for new opportunities for both the countries, a senior Indian diplomat has said.
"Both the countries have already exchanged the draft agreement. An expert Canadian team was in Mumbai last week to workout, with the Atomic Energy Commission of India, final technical details and conditions under which business can be done," S M Gavai, Indian high commissioner to Canada said.
Gavai, commending Canada's efforts to sign a nuclear pact with India, said: "We want to make sure that the proposed Canada-India nuclear agreement is equitable and non-discriminatory and both the countries work on the same wavelength."
"Canadian firms, including federally-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, Cameco Corp and SNC-Lavalin are eager to forge joint ventures or work with Indian firms to help build billion-dollar nuclear reactors and supply uranium," Gavai said.
He added that India is in favour of early implementation of Canada-India Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement and stressed on the need for facilitating greater engagement between small and medium enterprises of the two countries.
 

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Canada close to signing nuclear deal with India

Canada close to signing nuclear deal with India

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
TORONTO


May 27, 2009 23:51


Canada's international trade minister on Wednesday said Canada is very close to signing a nuclear deal with India.

Stockwell Day said Wednesday the pact will let Canada sell India nuclear technology and uranium for civilian use.

Day announced in January that government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding with India for next-generation nuclear reactors.

The international community lifted a three-decade ban on nuclear trade with India last September even though India still refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

India reportedly wants to build 25 to 30 new reactors in the coming years.


Canada close to sign nuclear deal with India | Headlines | Jerusalem Post
 

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Canada close to signing nuclear deal with India

On Wednesday May 27, 2009, 6:52 pm EDT



International Trade Minister Stockwell Day
responds to a question during question period in the House
of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday
April 2, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick



TORONTO (AP) -- Canada is poised to sign a deal with India to sell nuclear technology and materials to the energy-starved South Asian nation, Canada's international trade minister said Wednesday.

The pact will open up the lucrative Indian market to Canadian nuclear exports for the first time in more than three decades.

"We're very close to having an agreement with India related to the civilian use of nuclear energy for the purpose of helping them meet their energy needs," said Trade Minister Stockwell Day, who would not say exactly when the deal will be signed.

A senior Indian diplomat told the Press Trust of India on Wednesday that negotiators are on the verge of finalizing the pact.

Shashishekhar M. Gavai, India's high commissioner to Canada, told the news agency that Canadian and Indian officials have exchanged the draft agreement.

Gavai could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In January, Day announced that government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had signed a memorandum of understanding with India for next-generation nuclear reactors.

It was a turning point for Canada, which stopped nuclear co-operation with India in 1974 after its government used plutonium from a Canadian reactor to build an atomic bomb.

The international community lifted a three-decade ban on nuclear trade with India last September even though India still refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Some anti-nuclear activists worry India will stockpile domestic uranium for military weapons and use uranium imports for civilian purposes.

Canadian negotiators insisted India allow nuclear inspectors into civilian facilities, Day said. Under the deal Canadian nuclear exports cannot be used for military purposes, added Day.

Now that the moratorium has ended, countries are lining up to sell nuclear technology to India, which wants to build 25 to 30 new reactors in the coming years.

"The estimation is over the next 20 years, something like anywhere from CA$50 ($44) to CA$150 billion ($133 billion) worth of civil nuclear energy needs are what we're looking at," Day said.

On Tuesday, a senior executive from AECL told Canada's finance committee the corporation is eyeing foreign markets for its next-generation ACR 1000 reactors.

AECL signed a deal earlier this year with a leading Indian engineering firm to start costing out the ACR 1000s -- the prelude to a possible sale.

Saskatchewan's Cameco Corp., is also poised to sell uranium to India.

But Canada and India must finalize a formal deal before any commercial deals are inked.


Canada close to sign nuclear deal with India - Yahoo! Finance
Canada close to sign nuclear deal with India - Forbes.com
Canada close to inking nuclear deal with India: Day - Canada - Canoe.ca
 

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This is good news:

India's nuclear plants improve power generation

India's nuclear power reactors, which were running at only 40 per cent of their capacity, have now improved their generation with increased availability of uranium in the country.
The 12 Pressurised Heavy water Reactors of 220 Mw each are running at 70 per cent of their capacity due to improvement in the production of uranium from Jaduguda and Turamdih mills. They are currently producing 2,000 Mw," Department of Atomic Energy sources said here.
 

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Politics: India sticks to its stand on NPT

BANGALORE: External affairs minister S M Krishna on Friday signalled that India will rebuff renewed American attempts to get the country to signthe Nuclear non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), weeks ahead of a scheduled visit by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
:Laie_60A::twizt::113:
 

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Good move forward:

DISARMAMENT: Deadlock Ends On Way To Nuclear Abolition

GENEVA (IDN) - A nuclear free world is far from within reach yet. But there is reason to rejoice: after 12 years of stalemate, the Conference on Disarmament adopted by consensus May 29 a document that contains a work plan for 2009 in run up to the crucial nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference next year.

The document, reportedly backed also by North Korea, is a landmark step toward negotiating a world without nuclear weapons. Dozens of delegations took the Conference floor to laud "this historical moment, which had saved the world’s sole multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations".

The breakthrough marked the first time since 1996 that member states had agreed on the substance of what they should negotiate, amid conflicting demands for full nuclear disarmament, the ban on fissile material and the arms race in outer space.
 

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Further delay feared in Kudankulam project

The first of the units was to go on stream in December 2007 (and the second in December 2008).

However, there have been huge delays, mainly on account of equipment supplies from Russia.

The date of commissioning of the first unit was later revised to August 2009. This, according to sources both within and outside NPCIL, is not likely to be met.
Sources have told Business Line that a number of items of steam piping are yet to come from Russia. It is learnt that the Russians have given an assurance that all the piping supplies will be completely delivered in two months. Thereafter, it will take three months for the welding work. Inspection and clearance will take at least another month.

Therefore, the most optimistic estimate of the date of the first unit going on stream is January 2010. Even this assumes that the erection of the reactor — a job handled by Russians themselves — will also be completed by then.
The delay in the commissioning of the Kudankulam project has been one of the chief reasons for the severe power shortage (of 1,000 MW) in Tamil Nadu. But, sources note, next year should be much better after Kudankulam-I spins into operation.
 

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Obama picks are cool to US-India nuclear deal

Einhorn, known as an unrelenting non-proliferation and arms control hawk, worked in the State Department for 29 years before retirement, and was a trenchant critic of the US-India nuclear deal. Jocularly called the "grand ayatollah" of non-proliferation, he argued that the Bush administration gave away the house to India in order to build a strategic relationship with India at the risk of undermining non-proliferation regimes.
Former Indian officials hold Einhorn principally responsible for putting India in the nuclear doghouse for decades along with many proliferating nations despite its spotless record of on-proliferation. Ironically, they say, some of the most egregious acts of proliferation, including Chinese supply of nuclear technology and material to Pakistan, and A.Q.Khan network's proliferation to North Korea, Iran, Libya, and al-Qaida, among others, took place on Einhorn's watch.
"There is nothing to be alarmed about. We have got most of what we wanted in terms of global sanctions on nuclear trade having been lifted. Agreements already signed with Kazakhstan, France and Russia for Uranium and reactors. Now the ball is in US court," says Shivanand Kanavi, a business writer from Mumbai who has followed the nuclear deal closely and is writing a book on the Indian nuclear industry.
 

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India can team up with EU for nuclear research

India can team up with EU for nuclear research

The negotiations for a research deal will begin in the next few weeks, said ambassador of the European Commission delegation in India Daniele Smadja
Seema Singh

Bangalore: India can now collaborate with the institutions in the European Union for nuclear energy research and development as the European Commission has received a mandate from its member states for the same.
The negotiations for a research deal will begin in the next few weeks, said ambassador of the European Commission delegation in India Daniele Smadja.

This comes four years after EU and India signed an agreement on nuclear fusion research, which allowed India in 2005 to participate in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Research project.

A large part of the new collaboration, Smadja said in Bangalore, will be towards research in the next generation safeguards of nuclear installations.
However, there’s another area of research, carbon capture and storage, or CCS — where India recently rejected EU’s proposal to participate in a demonstration project. CCS is emerging as a new approach to capture
industrial carbon dioxide at the source and inject it underground.

We understand India’s concern in not allowing demonstration of carbon capture and storage technology on its soil since it’s a densely populated country and the technology is still in the research stage. But we will keep India informed so that if it decides to participate at any stage, it can join the project, said Smadja.

India can team up with EU for nuclear research - Economy and Politics - livemint.com
 
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Areva Offers India Stakes in African Mines, Jain Says (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

Areva Offers India Stakes in African Mines, Jain Says


By Archana Chaudhary

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Areva SA, the world’s biggest maker of atomic reactors, has offered India stakes in African uranium mines to ensure supplies for fuel-starved plants, the head of the nation’s monopoly nuclear generator said.

State-run Nuclear Power Corp. of India is considering investing in as many as four mines, including projects in South Africa and Nigeria, Chairman Shreyans Kumar Jain said in an interview in Mumbai. Patricia Marie, a spokeswoman for Areva in Paris, confirmed “strategic talks” with partners to develop some mines and declined to comment on specific proposals.

India would gain resources for its atomic expansion after Australia, with the world’s largest known uranium reserves, refused to sell to countries that haven’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Areva is building the first large- capacity reactor project in the South Asian nation, which plans a 14-fold increase in nuclear generation by 2030.

“India and China buying stakes in uranium mines will boost production, not prices,” said Max Layton, London-based analyst at Macquarie Bank Ltd. “We predict an annual deficit of as much as 2,000 tons in uranium till 2011-12. We expect it to take until 2013-14 before more mines come into production.”

Nuclear Power is also seeking long-term supply contracts from Kazakhstan, Canada and Brazil as it orders reactors worth at least $14 billion from overseas, Jain said. A three-decade global ban on atomic supplies to India was lifted last year.

“We may invest up to 26 percent of the project cost,” Jain said, declining to give more details about the Areva mines or how much the company would spend on the proposed acquisitions.

Insufficient Reserves

Buying shares in Areva’s mines will help boost supplies for locally built atomic plants as domestic reserves of uranium are insufficient for India’s requirements, Jain said yesterday. Nuclear Power may spend more than a planned $1.2 billion to buy equity in overseas uranium mines, including those in Russia and Kazakhstan, he said.

Areva, which is building the first large-capacity atomic project in India with overseas equipment, will also supply uranium to run the reactors for 60 years, Chief Executive Officer Anne Lauvergeon said in February after signing a preliminary sales agreement.

Nuclear Power will buy two Areva reactors of 1,650-megawatt capacity each and may increase the number to six, according to the preliminary agreement.

The project will be built at Jaitapur in the western state of Maharashtra and Nuclear Power may complete acquiring almost 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) of land for it in the “next few months,” Jain said.

Awaiting Approvals

The two companies are waiting for France’s parliament to approve an inter-governmental agreement before raising 3 billion euros ($4.25 billion) for the project, he said.

A final accord may be signed next year after obtaining French parliamentary and regulatory approvals, Jain said.

Nuclear Power’s agreements to buy reactors from U.S.-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Russia’s Rosatom Corp. also include assured uranium supplies, Jain said.

The Indian company may need 750 metric tons of the fuel each year after signing agreements to add 25,000 megawatts of capacity, Jain said in an interview in March.

Nuclear Power is bidding for stakes in uranium mines in Russia and Kazakhstan, including the untapped Elkon deposit in Russia’s Far East, Jain had said in a May 26 interview in Moscow.

India’s current nuclear power generation capacity of 4,120 megawatts accounts for 3 percent of the total, according to the power ministry’s Web site. India may produce 60,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2030, Shyam Saran, special envoy to the prime minister, said Jan. 8.

-- With assistance from Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris. Editors: John Chacko, Ang Bee Lin.
 
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Fusion: confusion or refusin' ? | GreenTech Pastures | ZDNet.com

Fusion: confusion or refusin' ?



Courtesy: ITER, the fusion coalition.
Comspiracy freaks are gonna love this. The global consortium that’s been promising and planning and spending to get a fusion reactor up and running…well, they’re kinda re-thinking the project and scaling back, and maybe cutting way back…and, well, they may just not do nearly as much or move as quickly as anybody had promised.
Money problems. Feasability doubts. Money problems. Political queasiness.
Supposedly the machine would start running in 2018 with the first power-generating experiments to take place several years later.
Now it looks like the cost could double to $10 billion US, the project get trimmed down and the time for construction…? The members meet later this month to discuss the revised plans. Then they’ll meet in Japan this fall to approve, or not. members of the fusion council are the European Union (EU), Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, China and India.
Whatever does get built will be in France, where a big patch of land is waiting.
Fusion has long been a distant but theoretically bright hope for cheap, plentiful energy.
As of this monent, Wikipedia’s timeline on nuclear fusion still posits that construction will begin this year on the international reactor, ITER. NOT.
 

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Westinghouse to Begin Talks with NPCIL to Deploy AP1000™ Nuclear Power Plants in India

Friday, May 29, 2009


Westinghouse Electric Company announced today that it will begin discussions with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd., (NPCIL) with a goal of reaching agreement on the deployment of Westinghouse AP1000™ nuclear power plants in India.

The announcement followed signing of a memorandum of understanding by Dr. S. K. Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of NPCIL, and Westinghouse President and CEO Aris S. Candris. In making the announcement, Dr. Candris said it is logical for the two companies to work together to further expand India's already robust nuclear power industry.

"NPCIL is India's nuclear power plant company, with the broadest range of expertise encompassing design, engineering, construction, commissioning and operation," he said. "We look forward to bringing our AP1000 nuclear technology to India through such an experienced and well-respected organization as NPCIL.

"Equally important, we are confident that our business model, with emphasis on localization and infrastructure development, will benefit NPCIL, Westinghouse and the people of India and the United States."

Meena Mutyala, Westinghouse vice president and business leader for India, confirmed Westinghouse would make use of India-based companies and labor. She said Westinghouse is now exploring potential opportunities to work with companies such as Larsen & Toubro and others to provide construction-related services, equipment and modules for AP1000s to be built in India.

"Westinghouse's global track record of success with localization is well documented," she said. "In India, with an already-established infrastructure, we also hope to qualify companies to assist us in constructing or providing equipment for AP1000s elsewhere in the world."

The AP1000, design certified by the NRC in early 2006, is fast becoming the technology of choice in key markets throughout the world. In December 2006, China's State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation selected Westinghouse to provide two AP1000s each at both the Sanmen and Haiyang sites. In the United States, the AP1000 is the announced technology of choice for no less than 14 new plants, including six for which Engineering; Procurement and Construction contracts have been signed.

Westinghouse believes the AP1000 is ideally suited for the worldwide nuclear power marketplace, as it is:

  • A passively safe design that employs natural forces - natural circulation, gravity, convection and compressed gas - to maintain safety in the highly unlikely event of an accident.
  • Modular in design, promoting standardization and high construction quality.
  • Economical to construct and maintain (less concrete and steel and fewer components and systems mean there is less to install, inspect and maintain).
  • Designed to promote ease of operation (features most advanced instrumentation and control system in the industry).

For more information about the Westinghouse AP1000, visit Westinghouse AP1000.

Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation, is the world's pioneering nuclear power company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first PWR in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for well over 40 percent of the world's operating nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the United States.


Your Nuclear News - Westinghouse to Begin Talks with NPCIL to Deploy AP1000? Nuclear Power Plants in India
 

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India should manufacture equipment of N-industry

"Instead of jumping first for utilities (power plants), the new private entrants to the nuclear industry should grab the opportunity and maximise India's advantage in manufacturing of nuclear equipments and components," Kakodkar told PTI while reacting to the report submitted by FICCIs working group on civil nuclear energy on issues concerning utilities to the government of India last week.
"This is not the time to look at the Atomic Energy Act (which is required mainly for Indian industries to take up utilities) but instead try and build up the supply chain and prepare for export to the neighbouring countries making India a nuclear hub of manufacturing and a supply chain king," Kakodkar said.
 

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Obama nominee backtracks on n-deal

“During the course of the [nuclear deal], there were supporters and sceptics in both countries,” she said. “However, upon its successful conclusion, both our Administration and the Government of India have resolved to continue moving forward to strengthen our important strategic relationship. I look forward to doing my part to advance that cooperation.”
 

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