Asia Times: India's nuclear program fails to make the grade


	February 20, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

India's nuclear program fails to make the grade
By T V Padma

NEW DELHI - Citing safety reasons, India has for the second time this year ordered the shutdown of a second nuclear plant, amid concerns that the country is steadily falling behind a target of generating 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power by 2020. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has ordered one of the two plants of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS-1) at Rawatbhatta in western Rajasthan state, built more than 30 years ago, to cease operation by April.

AERB Secretary K S Parthasarathy said "the plant would be allowed to operate beyond that month only if the officials undertake a detailed safety upgradation program", which can take anywhere beyond 18 months.

Earlier, on January 9, the AERB shut down a plant at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in southern Tamil Nadu state so that safety improvements could be carried out.

RAPS-1, built with Canadian assistance in 1972, is India's first pressurized heavy water reactor (PWHR). It uses pressurized "heavy" water as a moderator to maintain the reactor temperature and prevent it from overheating, as well as a coolant for the reactor. But Canada walked out of the project in 1974, after India's first nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan, leaving Indian scientists to handle, maintain, repair and operate the RAPS plants on their own. An international boycott that followed slowed India's nuclear program but by no means halted an independent program, which does not accept full-scope inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"We cannot be blamed for the design limitations of the reactor. It was built with whatever was the latest technology available in 1970s. Thirty years down the line, it is easy to pick on faults by hindsight," said an official of the Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd (NPCIL), which runs India's 14 nuclear power plants.

The impending RAPS-1 closure brings into focus India's lagging nuclear power production program. While atomic scientists set an ambitious target of producing 10,000MW by 2000, the country has up to now barely managed a quarter of the targeted production - 2,500MW as of February 12. Achieving the target of producing 20,000MW of power by 2020 seems even more remote.

India has 14 nuclear power plants - two units each at Tarapur in western Maharashtra, four at Rawatbhatta in Rajasthan, two at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, two at Narora in northern Uttar Pradesh, two at Kakrapar in western Gujarat in the west and two at Kaiga in southern Karnataka. All have been beset by problems.

The performance of plants at Tarapur and Rawatbhatta is below the original target of 220MW. While the Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), built in 1969, is operating at a 160MW capacity, the RAPS plants are producing only 100-140MW of power.

In a release, the AERB identified failures in turbine blades, cracks in the end-shields that hold the fuel rods together, leaks in tubes in the heat exchanger and pressure relief devices as some of the problems that plagued RAPS-1. "These are some of the technical issues which occurred and were resolved from time to time. Some of these issues required novel engineering solutions and considerable time and effort for implementations," AERB said. The reactor was running again after undergoing some repairs recently, but the AERB said, "of late, some of the components of RAPS-1 have shown signs of aging".

Parthasarathy said that after a technical review meeting this month, officials decided to stop operations after April 30, "taking a holistic view of the problems encountered and as a measure of abundant precaution". NPCIL officials in Mumbai said the plant would be shut down for three months beginning in May and the plant will be thoroughly investigated.

Disruptions have marked the performance of India's other atomic power plants from the start, accounting for the sub-optimal nuclear power production. Though the country has 12 of the world's total of 34 operating PWHRs, its power production is low, conceded Parthasarathy. Nuclear power barely accounts for 2 percent of India's total power production but work on building new plants continues. In November, India finalized a deal with Russia to buy two large reactors capable of generating 2,000MW of power at a plant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu.

The Tarapur plant often suffered shutdowns and radiation leaks due to faulty designing. It faced a crisis when the United States stopped the supply of enriched uranium, saying India was diverting spent fuel for its nuclear-weapons program. However, France agreed to supply the fuel, helping the reactor continue with its operation. India's most important supplier of nuclear material has been the former Soviet Union and later its successor Russia.

The second in the series - RAPS - whose first plant began commercial operation in 1973, was shut down for almost a year in 1982 due to recurring leaks in one of the shields to cover the cooling tubes. After extensive repairs, the plant continued to operate in fits and starts, with recurring leaks frequently halting power production.

The first Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) plant at Kalpakkam, near the eastern seashore in Tamil Nadu, also suffered shutdowns in the '80s, when jellyfish swam into a tunnel that brings in seawater used to cool the reactor. There were frequent leaks of heavy water from the tubes, and once two uranium fuel rods got stuck in the tubes at the MAPS plants.

Fire broke out in a generator at the Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) in 1993, destroying it. Concern has also been voiced over its location - in the quake-prone Himalayan belt in India, though civil engineers have repeatedly stressed that the plant has been designed to withstand jolts of earthquakes measuring over 8 on the Richter scale.

At Kaiga in south India, the first power plant suffered a mishap even while it was being built, when a building dome came crashing down, due to faulty design.

A former AERB chairman, A Gopalakrishnan, has been the most vocal critic of the safety of India's nuclear power plants. He has gone on record saying India's nuclear power plants were "a disaster waiting to happen" - a charge repeatedly denied by his successors at the AERB, NPCIL and the apex Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

Parthasarathy pointed out that the AERB has never hesitated to order a plant to shut down if it was not satisfied with safety issues.

(Inter Press Service)