The Hindu Business Line : Safeguards and the thorium alternative

The TV media has been heralding that the draft text of the Safeguards agreement with the IAEA provides: an Indian effort to develop a strategic reserve of nuclear fuel to guard against any disruption of supply over the lifetime of India’s reactors and, two, corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies.

These are, after all, the rights of any sovereign country and nobody need gloat over these provisions. However, even without being driven to the wall, India has to look at developing a long-term alternative to retain our freedom.

This alternative opportunity can be found in thorium, considered the world’s leading proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel. India has more than 25 per cent of the world`s thorium resources. Using thorium-based nuclear fuels has many important societal advantages, such as safety, and environmental and non-proliferation benefits.

Safer to use

Thorium is more abundant, efficient and safer to use as a reactor fuel than uranium. Also important, thorium reactors leave behind very little plutonium, meaning less material available for making nuclear weapons. Thorium is thus considered the key to long-term sustainability of nuclear energy.

The IAEA submitted a report on thorium utilisation in May 2005. The IAEA recommended that companies augment the exploration and mining of thorium to ensure the availability of sufficient supplies of reactor-grade thorium. The report cites the following advantages of thorium fuels over conventional uranium fuel:

Thorium is easily exploitable and is 3 to 4 times more abundant than uranium in nature;

The thorium fuel cycle is an attractive way to produce long-term nuclear energy with low radio-toxicity waste;

Transition to thorium could be done through the incineration of weapons-grade plutonium (WPu) or civilian plutonium;

Thorium-based fuels and fuel cycles have intrinsic proliferation-resistance;

The high degree of chemical stability and the low solubility of thorium make irradiated thoria-based fuels attractive as waste forms for direct geological disposal. Thorium reserves are widely present in India, according to the India`s Department of Atomic Energy, in large quantities.

Abundantly available

The total estimated reserves of monazite in India are about 8 million tonnes (containing about 0.63 million tonnes of thorium metal) occurring in beach and river sands, in association with other heavy minerals.

Of the nearly 100 deposits of the heavy minerals, at present, only 17 deposits containing about 4 million tonnes of monazite have been identified as exploitable.

Therefore, about 2,25,000 tonnes of thorium metal is available for the nuclear power programme.

India has to immediately start the development of its own fuel for the nuclear programme — both energy and weapons related — however costly it is, and retain its freedom. It s sad, instead, that the government has neglected this for a long time and decided to look for fuel elsewhere.

(The author is a power consultant and can be contracted at paddy8@gmail.com)

Related Stories:
Ten misconceptions about the nuclear deal
Safeguards pact won’t affect domestic N-programme: AEC chief
Make best use of thorium deposits, scientists told