Nuclear City

For the 540 MW Tarapur Atomic Power Plant (TAPP-4) the initial target was seven years, trimmed to six-and-a-half years, and achieved in five years last year, when it started generating electricity. India’s 16th nuclear power reactor TAPP-3, also 540 MW capacity, attained its first sustained nuclear fission chain reaction at 10.44 am last Sunday.

But the real story of the twin reactors began in 1984, surviving years of frozen finances, and unused, expensive equipment that had to be protected from rust.

IN 1984, a group of 30-35 handpicked engineers got down to work at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre with just one directive. ‘‘I was pulled out of all other work and given a place to sit at BARC, to lead the design of India’s first 500 MW reactor,’’ recalls S L Kati, who led the reactor design team. ‘‘We didn’t do any other work except this.’’

Kati’s team completed its job over a decade before construction started about five years ago with 10,000 workers, 250 engineers, and 30,000 site activities monitored on computers every 12 hours.

Tarapur also houses the 160 MW TAPP-1 and 2, India’s first nuclear power reactors commissioned in 1969. TAPP-3 and 4 will supply 1,080 MW to the western states, with Maharashtra bagging 430 MW.

Kati was the first MD of the Nuclear Power Corporation India (NPCIL) that now attracts global bids to invest in nuclear power plants nationwide. ‘‘Without any foreign help, we designed a 540 MW plant so that about 500 MW would go to the grid, after inhouse consumption is considered,’’ he says. ‘‘NPCIL then didn’t have a strong reactor physics group, so BARC expertise was often consulted.’’

By 1990, 85 per cent designs were completed, scaled up from existing 220 MW designs, and major equipment that would need long-term delivery was ordered. ‘‘Then, unfortunately, government funding froze,’’ says Kati. ‘‘For 10 years, the equipment we had ordered had to be protected from corrosion since Tarapur is a coastal site. That’s why, once construction started, TAPP-3 and 4 could be completed quickly because lots of advanced work was done long ago.’’ A software package was used to review progress on the master plan every 12 hours, staff and contractors got constant training updates and ‘‘pep talks’’ every evening, and there were incentive schemes for employees, with the teams working round-the-clock every holiday.

‘‘At times, challenges were solved overnight,’’ says O P Goyal, Tarapur site director, and station director for TAPP-3 and 4. ‘‘If I telephoned NPCIL at 2 am, about a technical crisis, somebody would arrive from Mumbai by 6 am to solve it. Often, there was no sleep. One night a test run for a component went on from 9 pm to 4 am.’’ Goyal says most activities for TAPP-3 were completed in ‘‘half the time’’ required for TAPP-4. Soon after TAPP-3’s first successful sustained nuclear fission chain reaction last Sunday, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has permitted further physics experiments to enable starting of power production.

Meanwhile at Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, frenetic activity goes on, bigger than the 30,000 jobs that recently ended at Tarapur. Next year, the 1,000 MW Kudankulum-1 and 2 are slated to take over—as India’s largest operating nuclear power units.