Thorium Scam :After coal, did India give away Thorium at pittance too? (claim of Rs 48 lakh crore lost)

[jairamesh]

The Great Thorium Robbery (Sam Rajappa) http://thestatesman.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=422057&catid=38 Since the UPA government assumed office in 2004 with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, 2.1 million tones of monazite, equivalent to 195,300 tonnes of thorium at 9.3 per cent recovery, has disappeared from the shores of India. Thorium is a clean nuclear fuel of strategic importance for both nuclear energy generation and nuclear-tipped missiles. The beaches of Orissa Sand Complex, Manavalakurichi in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and the Aluva-Chavara belt on the Kerala coast have been identified under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, as the main monazite bearing areas in the country. In most other countries, thorium reserves are embedded in rocks which require elaborate processing to extract. Public sector Indian Rare Earths Limited having divisions at Chatrapur in Orissa, Manavalakurichi in Tamil Nadu, Chavara and Aluva, and its own research centre in Kollam in Kerala, is the only institution authorised to extract thorium from monazite sands. If the Comptroller and Auditor-General were to audit the accounts of the IREL and the Department of Atomic Energy, custodians of fissile minerals, the coalgate scam would look like small change. The missing thorium, conservatively estimated at $100 a tonne, works out to about Rs 48 lakh crore, putting all other UPA scams in the shade. To a question by Kodikunnel Suresh addressed to the Prime Minister in the Lok Sabha on 30 November 2011, about the quantum of monazite being exported to other countries and whether the companies mining beach sand have violated the norms of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, V Narayanaswamy, Minister of State in the PMO, said that beach sands containing heavy minerals barring monazite were being exported. However, he said that licence under the Atomic Energy Act was required for the export of monazite and thorium which were prescribed substances, and that no licence was given for the export of these items. The Department of Atomic Energy, directly under Manmohan Singh, delisted heavy minerals like monazite and ilmenite from the prescribed substances list vide SO 61 (E) dated 20 January, 2006, to facilitate their export by private companies. Licences have been issued with the proviso that ÅÉaving undertaken to comply with the conditions prescribed in the Atomic Energy (Working of mines, minerals hand handling of prescribed substances) Rules, 1984, licence is issued with the approval of the Licensing Authority. The Licencing Authority is the Nagpur-based Chief Controller of Mines, under the Union Ministry of Mines. Ever since CP Ambrose, Chief Controller of Mines, an upright officer, retired on 30 June 2008, the post has been deliberately kept open and Ranjan Sahai, Controller of Mines, Central Zone, alleged to be close to private placer mineral industrialists, has been allowed to officiate in place of the Chief Controller. Four years is a long time to keep a key post of crucial, strategic and vital importance vacant. Sahai is said to be the most favoured public functionary of the Union Ministry of Mines working in the field, enjoying dictatorial clout with all officials in the ministry. Several written public complaints against Sahai are pending with the Central Vigilance Commissioner, New Delhi. It is reliably learnt that the Departmental Promotion Committee has already selected an officer working in Nagpur to fill the post of Chief Controller of Mines but his appointment is being prevented by Sahai. Such is his clout in the Ministry of Mines. According to K Balachandran of the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research, DAE, commercial exploitation of beach sand in India dates back to 1909 when Schomberg, a German chemist, was exploring for monazite occurrences in search of thorium for the gas mantles industry. After the German, the French, who understood the value of thorium, began buying beach sand from Kerala and exporting it to their country. From this starting point many milestones have been crossed with the discovery of ilmenite, rutile, garnet, zircon and sillimanite in our beach sands. When the Department of Atomic Energy was established in the early days of independence, one of the first decisions Prime Minister Nehru took was to ban the export of thorium. India is reputed to have the largest mineral sands resources in the world. These are also among the least exploited resources having a high potential to meet the countryÃÔ energy needs. Seventy per cent of India energy is met by import of oil and gas. The beach placer mining sector was opened to private entrepreneurs in 1998. Export of beach sands registered a quantum jump after 2005. As if to promote exports, even radioactive minerals, much needed for our nuclear energy programme, are allowed to be taken out of the country unchecked. To add insult to injury, private exporters of prohibited minerals are presented with Special Awards and Certificates of Merit by the Chemicals and Allied Products Export Promotion Council of the Government of India. Indiscriminate mining, if not monitored and regulated, can cause severe erosion in the coastal areas. At least now the government should exclude thorium producing placer minerals like monazite, ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and mineral complexes together with uranium minerals from the purview of privatisation under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, and the Indian Atomic Energy Act, 1948. These resources should be specified in the Central List of Part XI of the Constitution. The Mines Act should be amended with a mandate for the setting up of a Mines Regulatory Authority on the lines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority or the Insurance Regulatory Authority in order to ensure that any complex minerals which have the potential to produce thorium is not allowed to be mined and conserved with provisos for extraction and delivery of processed thorium to the agencies of the Atomic Energy Commission. Considering the strategic importance, select thorium bearing areas should be declared as exclusive zones and brought under the security cover of the Army, Navy and the Air Force. The civil administration has proved incapable of handling this responsibility. All private trade, both internal and external, in thorium producing placer mineral complexes should be banned and the entire thorium extracted so far should be brought under the control of the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency. The CBI should investigate illegal mining of thorium resources and bring the culprits to book expeditiously. Since local communities constitute the first line of defence to ensure protection and conservation of the strategic reserves; they should be given a substantial share of the mining profits. To ensure that the distribution of such share reaches the beneficiaries, the Joint Nuclear Fuel Control Agency should pass on the amount to the Panchayati Raj institutions in the mining areas. As Shashi Tharoor, former Minister of State for External Affairs, said at a recent book release function: Ũood governance transcends all administrative frontiers. It requires politicians to recognise the importance of working together for a common goal. The UPA government has been squandering Bharat MataÃÔ gift of nature for private greed and proved in the last eight years that it is incapable of providing good governance. The greatest service Manmohan Singh could do to the nation before another scam even bigger than the great thorium robbery surfaces is to resign and go. Surely we have had enough of his leadership.

[jairamesh]

Since the UPA government assumed office in 2004 with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, 2.1 million tones of monazite, equivalent to 195,300 tonnes of thorium at 9.3 per cent recovery, has disappeared from the shores of India.

The missing thorium, conservatively estimated at $100 a tonne, works out to about Rs 48 lakh crore, putting all other UPA scams in the shade.

The numbers look abit sketchy. The estimates of current Thorium price range from $30/kg to $3000/kg. Also going by the author's claim of $100/tonne, I am not sure how it works out to Rs 48 lakh crore, considering only 195,300 tonnes was exported. Neverthless, it's a shame that government is letting thorium being exported, whilst India has expertise in building Thorium reactors which are 5 times cheaper than Uranium based reactors to build and run. :hitler:

[surajmal]

Ãuthor needs to do a bit more look-see. Thorium price on the international market is about $5000/kg. Another thing is who will they be shipping it to (other than China - who only have 1 experimental reactor up and running)? Regardless, would anyone be surprised if these criminals were shipping off ALL over natural resources overseas. Problem is Thorium is the future of this country. So not only are they ruining the present but putting a dent in the future energy supplies as well. I'm sorry but anyone who votes for congress in 2014 should be branded a traitor and executed.

[jairamesh]

BTW, India has the largest reserve of accessible Thorium in the world. So I am not sure why the feck is there is no policy for a drive to build Thorium reactors rather then meeting 70% of energy demand with imported oil and gas.

[surajmal]

BTW, India has the largest reserve of accessible Thorium in the world. So I am not sure why the feck is there is no policy for a drive to build Thorium reactors rather then meeting 70% of energy demand with imported oil and gas.

NGOs throwing demonstrations at every proposed Nuclear site.

[surajmal]

Here some recent news on Kalpakkam site (Fast Breeder that will use both Uranium and Thorium feeds)

The atomic scientist said the prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) of 500 MW capacity at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, which ensures safety by carrying out recycling activities on site, would begin operations next year. "It will start functioning next year. It is in advanced stages of construction," said Srinivasan. Speaking on the agenda of thorium based reactors, he made it clear that it cannot be done overnight. "Thorium is not a fuel by itself. We need plutonium, uranium-235, or uranium-233 for that. But the first ever thorium reactor - the advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) of 300 MW capacity might start operations by 2017," he divulged.

Read more: http://india.nydailynews.com/business/9efe40dba7c0d093e42fd33c4e28435c/kudankulam-to-start-full-load-power-generation-by-december#ixzz25jIKOq7b So apparently the fast breeder prototype has some differences compared to the the commercial thorium reactor (AHWR) that BARC is working on, which I didn't. Primary one being Water being used as a coolant instead of sodium. I'll check if I can find more literature on the design. This is what I could find on the thorium design (commercial) on Wiki

The advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) is the latest Indian design for a next generation nuclear reactor that will burn thorium in its fuel core. It is slated to form the third stage in India's 3 stage fuel cycle plan.[1] Thorium is an element that is 3 times more abundant globally than uranium. As all mined thorium is potentially usable to breed reactor fuel (in contrast with approximately 0.7% of natural uranium being usable as reactor fuel, some 40 times the amount of energy per unit mass might theoretically be available from thorium.[2]) This phase of the fuel cycle plan is supposed to be built starting 2016.[3] The proposed design of the AHWR is that of a heavy water moderated nuclear power reactor that will be the next generation of the PHWR type. It is now being developed at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), in Mumbai, India and aims to meet the objectives of using thorium fuel cycles for commercial power generation. The AHWR is a vertical pressure tube type reactor cooled by boiling light water under natural circulation. A unique feature of this design is a large tank of water on top of the primary containment vessel, called the Gravity Driven Water Pool (GDWP). This reservoir is designed to perform several passive safety functions. The reactor design incorporates advanced technologies, together with several proven positive features of Indian pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs). These features include pressure tube type design, low pressure moderator, on-power refueling, diverse fast acting shut-down systems, and availability of a large low temperature heat sink around the reactor core. The AHWR incorporates several passive safety features. These include: Core heat removal through natural circulation; direct injection of emergency core coolant system (ECCS) water in fuel; and the availability of a large inventory of borated water in overhead gravity-driven water pool (GDWP) to facilitate sustenance of core decay heat removal. The emergency core cooling system (ECCS) injection and containment cooling can act (SCRAM) without invoking any active systems or operator action. The reactor physics design is tuned to maximise the use of thorium based fuel, by achieving a slightly negative void coefficient. Fulfilling these requirements has been possible through the use of PuO2-ThO2 MOX, and ThO2-233UO2 MOX in different pins of the same fuel cluster, and the use of a heterogeneous moderator consisting of amorphous carbon (in the fuel bundles) and heavy water in 80?0% volume ratio. The core configuration lends itself to considerable flexibility and several feasible solutions, including those not requiring the use of amorphous carbon based reflectors, are possible without any changes in reactor structure.

[surajmal]

Here is another article on Indian AHWR design

India has announced plans for a prototype nuclear power plant that uses an innovative "safer" fuel. Officials are currently selecting a site for the reactor, which would be the first of its kind, using thorium for the bulk of its fuel instead of uranium the fuel for conventional reactors. They plan to have the plant up and running by the end of the decade. The development of workable and large-scale thorium reactors has for decades been a dream for nuclear engineers, while for environmentalists it has become a major hope as an alternative to fossil fuels. Proponents say the fuel has considerable advantages over uranium. Thorium is more abundant and exploiting it does not involve release of large quantities of carbon dioxide, making it less dangerous for the climate than fossil fuels like coal and oil. In a rare interview, Ratan Kumar Sinha, the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, told the Guardian that his team is finalising the site for construction of the new large-scale experimental reactor, while at the same time conducting "confirmatory tests" on the design. "The basic physics and engineering of the thorium-fuelled Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) are in place, and the design is ready," said Sinha. Once the six-month search for a site is completed probably next to an existing nuclear power plant it will take another 18 months to obtain regulatory and environmental impact clearances before building work on the site can begin. "Construction of the AHWR will begin after that, and it would take another six years for the reactor to become operational," Sinha added, meaning that if all goes to plan, the reactor could be operational by the end of the decade. The reactor is designed to generate 300MW of electricity about a quarter of the output of a typical new nuclear plant in the west. Sinha added that India was in talks with other countries over the export of conventional nuclear plants. He said India was looking for buyers for its 220MW and 540MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). Kazakhastan and the Gulf states are known to have expressed an interest, while one source said that negotiations are most advanced with Vietnam, although Sinha refused to confirm this. "Many countries with small power grids of up to 5,000 MW are looking for 300MW reactors," he said. "Our reactors are smaller, cheaper, and very price competitive." Producing a workable thorium reactor would be a massive breakthrough in energy generation. Using thorium a naturally occurring moderately radioactive element named after the Norse god of thunder as a source of atomic power is not new technology. Promising early research was carried out in the US in the 1950s and 60s and then abandoned in favour of using uranium. The pro-thorium lobby maintains this was at least partly because national nuclear power programmes in the US and elsewhere were developed with a military purpose in mind: namely access to a source of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Unlike uranium, thorium-fuelled reactors do not result in a proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium. Also, under certain circumstances, the waste from thorium reactors is less dangerous and remains radioactive for hundreds rather than thousands of years. That is a considerable plus for governments now worried about how to deal with nuclear waste and concerned about the possibility of rogue governments or terrorists getting their hands on plutonium. Also, with the world's supply of uranium rapidly depleting, attention has refocused on thorium, which is three to four times more abundant and 200 times more energy dense.. "Given India's abundant supply of thorium it makes sense for her to develop thorium reactors," said Labour peer Baroness Worthington who is patron of the Weinberg Foundation, which promotes thorium-fuelled nuclear power. She added: "However, many of the advantages of thorium fuel are best realised with totally new reactor designs such as the molten salt reactor developed Alvin Weinberg in the 60s. I hope India will also commit to exploring this option." India has the world's largest thorium deposits and with a world hungry for low-carbon energy, it has its eyes on a potentially lucrative export market for the technology. For more than three decades, India's nuclear research programme had been subject to international sanctions since its controversial 1974 nuclear tests. But after losing its pariah status three years ago as a result of the Indo-US nuclear deal, India is keen to export indigenous nuclear technology developed in research centres such as the BARC. There are still restrictions though. One problem is the "trigger fuel" the reactor needs to initiate operation. In the original design, this is a small quantity of plutonium. Instead the new reactor's trigger will be low-enriched uranium (LEU) which India is permitted to import under the 2008 Indo-US deal. "The AHWR will eventually have design flexibility, using as fuel either plutonium-thorium or LEU-thorium combinations," said Sinha. "The LEU-thorium version will make the AHWR very much marketable abroad, as it would generate very little plutonium ... making it suitable for countries with high proliferation resistance." The LEU-thorium design is currently at pilot stage. For the first time last year, the BARC tested the thorium-plutonium combination at its critical facility in Mumbai, but is still some way from doing the same for the thorium-LEU combination.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/01/india-thorium-nuclear-plant

[surajmal]

Found it http://www.barc.ernet.in/reactor/ahwr.pdf Some highlights 1 Using heavy water at low pressure reduces potential for leakages 2 Recovery of heat generated in the moderator for feed water heating 3 Elimination of major components and equipment such as primary coolant pumps and drive motors, associated control and power supply equipment and corresponding saving of electrical power required to run these pumps 4 Shop assembled coolant channels, with features to enable quick replacement of pressure tube alone, without affecting other installed channel components 5 Inherent advantages of using high pressure boiling water as coolant - Elimination of steam generators - Use of high-pressure steam 6 Production of 500 m^3/day of demineralised water in Multi Effect Desalination Plant by using steam from LP Turbine (For plants located on the sea coast) 7 Hundred year design life of the reactor 8 A design objective requiring no exclusion zone beyond plant boundary on account of its advanced safety features