An indigenous design for a Thorium nuclear reactor, which can produce 600 MWs of power for two years without being replenished, was unveiled today by two Indian scientists at an international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems in Brussels.Designed by scientists of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the thorium breeder reactor has been claimed to be far more economical and safer than any other in the world. More importantly, the reactor doesn’t need expensive and scarce Uranium-235. Although it would require plutonium initially, the reactor will eventually run entirely on Thorium and Uranium-233. BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the Thorium Breeder Reactor (ATBR) design in their paper presented today in Brussels. In the paper, the scientists explained that the reactor, while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from ‘‘seed’’ rods, converts 1100 kg of Thorium into fissionable Uranium-233.‘‘The uniqueness of the design is that there is almost a perfect balance between fissile depletion and production that allows inbred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years. this does not happen in present-day power reactors because the fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones,’’ the paper said.‘‘The ATBR produces intrinsically proliferation-resistant U-233 for sustenance of future reactor programme,’’ it said.
