China146;s fast breeders

The Russian government approved cooperation on breeder reactors with China in 2000. The first phase of this involves the construction of a 25 MW breeder reactor as a technology demonstrator not too far from Beijing.

It hopes to build a prototype fast breeder reactor of 600 MW by 2015, just five years after the Indian PFBR is expected to come on stream. Remember that Chinese nuclear power programme started full two decades after the Indian one. Going by the record, it is only a matter of time before China overtakes India in fast breeder development.

The German company, Siemens, has offered to export an entire plutonium fuel-fabrication factory to China. While this decision has run into political controversy at home because of anti-nuclear activists, it shows the opportunities for countries like China and India to leverage their decision to build expansive nuclear programmes.

China8217;s fast breeder strategy, like the rest of its nuclear power strategy is rooted in one big idea-grab whatever you can from the rest of the world. China is of course, eligible for international cooperation, because it is a nuclear weapon power under international law.

India, too, is being offered similar cooperation and a recognition of its nuclear status under the Indo-US nuclear pact. But our atomic energy establishment is having problems with separating the nation8217;s civil and military nuclear facilities, the precondition for implementing the pact.

While China plans to import reactors, technology, fuel in building a massive nuclear power programme, the size of India8217;s atomic power generation is tied down by an inward-looking approach.

External financing

While the DAE depends on the Indian taxpayer to finance all its power projects, China is in the happy situation of getting others to pay for its reactor construction programme.

When it announced at the end of 2004 a decision to build ten new power reactors 8212; with capacities ranging from 1000 MW to 1500 MW 8212; nuclear suppliers have been tripping over each other to win these contracts.

The competition is between two consortia, one led by the French Areva and the other by the US-based but Japanese-owned Westinghouse. Since thousands of US jobs are involved, the American Exim bank has approved 5 billion financing for Westinghouse to compete in the Chinese market.

Nuclear manufacturers around the world estimate that the Chinese nuclear market is worth nearly 50 billion. The Indian market, too, could be as big. But only if the DAE chooses to unveil a massive nuclear programme built around a strategy of nuclear globalisation.

R038;D collaboration

Although the Indian nuclear research and development programme was launched on the basis of international cooperation, three decades of isolation since the first test in 1974 has meant 8216;8216;foreign8217;8217; is a bad word.

Homi Bhabha the founder of India8217;s nuclear programme jumped at the R038;D openings offered by the US initiative on Atoms for Peace in 1953.

Bhabha also made the best use of the opportunity to collaborate with Canada on the development of the Candu reactor, which has emerged as the mainstay of India8217;s power programme.

Nuclear India now seems to thumb its nose at the prospect of nuclear cooperation with the rest of the world.

In contrast to India8217;s current preference for 8216;8216;nuclear isolationism8217;8217; on R038;D, China is reaping the benefits of international collaboration. Beijing8217;s tie-up with Moscow on PFBRs is only one example.

China is working with a number of other countries in developing the so-called pebble bed modular reactor based on technologies that are expected to generate greater safety and efficiency. The pebble bed reactors could also be used to produce hydrogen, which many in the world hope would emerge as a major alternative to oil in the transportation sector.

Using licensed technology from Germany the Tsinghua University in Beijing has already built a small pebble bed reactor of 10 MW. It hopes to have the first commercial pebble bed reactor of 200 MW up and running by 2007. If successful, China hopes to build thirty such reactors by 2020.

A Chinese company, 8216;8216;Chinergy8217;8217;, established to develop pebble bed reactors has signed an memorandum of understanding with a South African company which has emerged as one of the leaders of the pebble bed reactor technology.

The US university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has also joined R038;D forces with China and South Africa. China and South Africa hope to work together to commercialise and export the pebble bed reactors in the future.