Ultimately, these reactors will burn uranium and convert thorium to more uranium, creating a self-sustaining cycle of nuclear power generation. Most of them have never been properly spelt out either, even in Parliament, leave alone to the people. The FBTR became the learning and testing ground for the complex technologies that ultimately went into the design of the PFBR, in particular the use of liquid sodium as coolant, to transfer heat from the reactor core to the steam generator.
However, should we actually believe in the new deadline? But since the project was running significantly behind schedule and cost overruns were only to be expected, the government in April sanctioned a revised estimate of Rs 5, crore which the DAE had pitched for in April itself , extended the reactor completion schedule to September and set March 31, , as the deadline for commercial operations.
So if the reactor really goes into commercial mode in October , as stated in Parliament on March 19, the total delay would be seven years after the revised schedule.
Bhaduri and the BHAVINI chairman and managing director Kallol Roy for a realistic assessment of the present situation and their confidence in achieving criticality on the new target date elicited no response.
The CAG audit revealed significant deficiencies in the existing procurement procedure, which had delayed the placement of purchase orders for certain high-value items by up to three years. This in itself is quite understandable and par for the course.
However, according to the CAG, the procedural chain established was far from efficient, precipitating more delays. A test check of 25 orders revealed that the delays ranged from five to 55 months. These issues of material management apart, the most significant causes of delay were technical in nature — especially relating to the primary and secondary sodium coolant circuits. The PFBR reactor core produces heat by nuclear fission; the heat is carried away by liquid sodium circulated using two primary pumps.
DAE scientists and engineers developed these pumps — including designing, testing and manufacturing — in collaboration with Kirloskar Brothers Ltd.
The hot and radioactive primary sodium coolant transfers the heat to secondary sodium coolant via four intermediate heat exchangers IHXs. The non-radioactive secondary sodium is circulated through two independent secondary loops, each with two IHXs, a secondary sodium pump and four steam generators. The generators are linked to steam turbines to generate electric power. The sodium coolant system in this final PFBR design is significantly different from the original, drawn up in the s. The original design had provided for four primary sodium pumps, eight IHXs, four secondary loops and 36 steam generators.
Officials gave up on this after a design review by a peer group between and , undertaken at the suggestion of P. Iyengar, the then chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. The new design required higher capacities for the pumps, loops and related components. It was finalised in and the project was approved in According to R.
Kale, a former IGCAR scientist-engineer and a key person responsible for the development of the sodium coolant technology at IGCAR, the aforementioned design change — which had been examined by French and Russian experts as well — is by itself unlikely to be the cause of the current problems with the sodium circuits. This is an important shortcoming. Kale also stated that from to , most of the senior personnel involved in designing, constructing and commissioning the FBTR had retired or were about to.
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