Authorities want systems to work “exactly textbook like” before plant is commissioned

There was no major issue behind the delay in the commissioning of the 2000 MW nuclear power plant at Kudankulam, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission R.K. Sinha told a group of reporters here. Dr. Sinha said that since it was the first reactor of its kind to be constructed in India, the authorities wanted the systems worked “exactly textbook like” before the commissioning of the plant. This was the main reason for the delay.

The much-delayed Kudankulam project is set to be commissioned within the next two weeks as nuclear scientists have entered the final lap of a series of tests on its safety and efficacy.

“Within this month 100 per cent. It will take about two weeks,” Ratan Kumar Sinha, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission told PTI in Kolkata on the sidelines of the 100th Indian Science Congress when asked about the commissioning of the first 1,000 MW unit of the project.

In the last lap of its first approach to criticality, the first unit (1000 MWe) of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu is undergoing a battery of tests by engineers of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

R.K. Sinha, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, told The Hindu that the NPCIL engineers were busy, performing “high pressure and temperature tests.”
Additional tests

This is first of country's 20 nuclear plants and IAEA's 171st globally

International Atomic Energy Association’s (IAEA) 12-member operational safety review team (OSART) would complete on Wednesday its operational safety performance of 3&4 units of Rajasthan Atomic Power Stations (RAPS). This is IAEA’s 171 st OSART review across the globe since the programme´s inception in 1982 and first of any nuclear power plant in India.

Commissioning of the second unit is expected to follow early next year

The much-delayed Kudankulam nuclear power project is expected to become operational shortly, Ratan Kumar Sinha, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission said today. "The work on the construction of the first of the two 1000 MW Light Water Reactors (LWRs) at Kudankulam is complete," Sinha said addressing a function in Mumbai to commemorate the 103rd birth anniversary of Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder of India's nuclear programme.

NEW DELHI, 24 OCT: Amid a raging debate on atomic energy, scientists are busy designing nuclear reactors that can be located in the heart of a city, construction of which may begin within the next

Amid a raging debate on atomic energy, scientists are busy designing nuclear reactors that can be located in the heart of the city and construction on which may begin within the next five years.

The much-delayed 300-MW Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), which has been on the design table for nearly a decade, has several in-built safety features that would allow the power plant to be located even in densely populated areas.
“The AHWR has a number of in-built safety features that would require very little exclusion zone and can be built right in the heart of the city,” Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) director (technical) Shiv Abhilash Bhardwaj said here.

In its verdict giving the thumbs-up to the Kudankulam nuclear power project, the Madras High Court ruled that the government had taken post-Fukushima concerns while clearing the project and observed that remote possibilities of a disaster could not be cited to abandon a project.

The basic issue before the court was whether the KKNPP had all the required confirmations as per statutory provisions. It dealt with a host of issues relating to the agreements between India and Russia for setting up of the plant, apprehensions that arose following the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, safety measures, temperature of the trade effluent that would be discharged into the sea, earthquakes and safety, spent fuel and environmental safeguards.

In a major boost to the quest for deposits of uranium ore in the country, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has come across another site with a large deposit of the mineral in Rajasthan.

The deposit found at Rohil in Rajasthan’s Sikar district is estimated at 5,185 tonnes, which makes it the fourth largest in the country after Tummalapalle, Chitrial and Peddagattu extension in Andhra Pradesh.