'India may see 21,000 Mw n-power by '20'

Associate director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Mumbai) S Kailas said India’s nuclear programme aims to generate a total of 21,180 Mw of power from atomic energy by 2020. Delivering a special lecture at a workshop on ‘Nuclear Energy for 21st Century’ organised at SDM College of Engineering and Technology here on Thursday, he said 17 reactors at six sites — Tarapur, Rawatbhata, Kalpakkam, Narora, Kakrapar and Kaiga were in operation with a cumulative capacity of 4,120 Mw.

He said there is a strong correlation between per capita GDP and per capita electricity consumption and there was a need for a 10-fold growth in electricity generation capacity over the next 50 years.

Kailas noted that the shortage of resources is a major challenge and 20-25 per cent share of nuclear power was inevitable even after accounting for all other energy forms. He said, three pressurised heavy water reactors were under construction at Kaiga 4 220 Mw and two light water reactors at Kudankulam (2x1000 Mw).

Vice chairman of Karnataka State Council for Higher Education M I Savadatti inaugurated the workshop and said, nuclear energy had come of age because it provides clean energy which is also economically viable when compared to other traditional sources of power, and it shall continue to be so till major breakthroughs are accomplished in the areas of wind and solar energy.

He also said that the containment of radioactive waste provided a very fertile field for research. According to him, though the Indian nuclear programme is safer than in many of the developed countries, reducing the cost and time involved was the main challenge to Indians.Savadatti stressed the need for people from basic sciences and all domains of engineering to associate with nuclear science in order to make rapid progress in this field.

N Umakant expressed his concept of ‘small is beautiful’ where, if it becomes possible to reduce the size of nuclear reactors from the present minimum critical size, it would enable the setting up of small nuclear plants broadly distributed across the country. According to him, this would help bring down the transmission and distribution losses and also help to avoid situations where terrorists hold the government to ransom.