NEW DELHI: The country’s first thorium-based nuclear plant “Bhavni” is being set up at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu. It is going to be entirely indigenous and the first-of-its-kind. The experimental thorium plant “Kamini” already exists in Kalpakkam.
India has the largest thorium reserves in the world. Thorium is a radioactive metal and the Kerala coastline is estimated to have two lakh tonnes of such deposits. The state’s power utility has sought permission from the Centre to set up a thorium-based nuclear power plant on land at an NTPC unit near the Chavara coast at Kayamkulam.
Indian scientists have been working since the 1950s to develop technology for using thorium as a fuel for generating power. The need for cleaner fuel to generate power added to the need for this quest.
Dutch scientists are also working on the technology as the world seeks to find ways to fight climate change with a switch to clean energy. China, too, has pledged to spend $3.3bn to develop reactors that could eventually run on thorium. Proponents of thorium say it promises carbon-free power with less dangerous waste, lower risk of meltdowns and a much harder route to weaponisation than conventional nuclear waste.
However, rapid advances in renewables, a costly development path and doubts over how safe and clean future nuclear plants will be, are as seen as going against the use of thorium as a fuel for power plants, according to some scientists. Thorium will have to compete with solar and wind energy projects which are moving at a faster pace on the back of quick technological advances and are considered much safer than nuclear power.
