Massive uranium deposits found in Andhra Pradesh

[Vehl]

Potentiality of the area is huge; it will be one of the top 20 of the world's reserves: Atomic Minerals Directorate
Huge deposits of natural uranium, which promise to be one of the top 20 of the world's reserves, have been found in the Tummalapalle belt in the southern part of the Kadapa basin in Andhra Pradesh.

The Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), which explores uranium in the country, has so far discovered 44,000 tonnes of natural uranium ( U 308 ) in just 15 line km of the 160-km long belt.

Mr. Maithani said: “The continuity and tonnage of the Tummalapalle deposits is very high although the grade is medium.” The AMD earlier worked in the area and found more than 14,000 tonnes of U3O8. After developing the leachability of the natural uranium ore and tackling other issues, the AMD started drilling again in the area. “We expect that the continuity will be there up to 160 km. There may be some barren sites in between. But geologically, they are the same — the same rock is above and below the ground,” he said. He was sure the belt would yield more than 60,000 tonnes of U3O8. He called Tummalapalle “a special type of occurrence and you don't get this in any other part of the world. It is strata-bound.”

more here
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/andhra-pradesh/article1554078.ece

[Angry Dragon]

1. Time to get the war machine geared up

[Vehl]

2. It's for the power plants

Nuclear power is the fourth-largest source of electricity in India after thermal, hydroelectric and renewable sources of electricity.<1> As of 2010, India has 20 nuclear reactors in operation in six nuclear power plants, generating 4,780 MW<2> while 5 other plants are under construction and are expected to generate an additional 2,720 MW.<3> India's nuclear power industry is undergoing rapid expansion with plans to increase nuclear power output to 64,000 MW by 2032.<4> The country is involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors through its participation in the ITER project and is a global leader in the development of thorium-based fast breeder reactors.<5>

India's domestic uranium reserves are small and the country is dependent on uranium imports to fuel its nuclear power industry. Since early 1990s, Russia has been a major supplier of nuclear fuel to India.<6> Due to dwindling domestic uranium reserves,<7> electricity generation from nuclear power in India declined by 12.83% from 2006 to 2008.<8> Following a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group in September 2008 which allowed it to commence international nuclear trade,<9> India has signed bilateral deals on civilian nuclear energy technology cooperation with several other countries, including France,<10> the United States,<11> the United Kingdom,<12> and Canada.<13> India has also uranium supply agreements with Russia,<14><15> Mongolia,<16> Kazakhstan,<17> Argentina<18> and Namibia.<19> An Indian private company won a uranium exploration contract in Niger.<20>

India now envisages to increase the contribution of nuclear power to overall electricity generation capacity from 4.2% to 9% within 25 years.<21> In 2010, India's installed nuclear power generation capacity will increase to 6,000 MW.<22> As of 2009, India stands 9th in the world in terms of number of operational nuclear power reactors. Indigenous atomic reactors include TAPS-3, and -4, both of which are 540 MW reactors.<23> India's US$717 million fast breeder reactor project is expected to be operational by 2010.<24>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_India

[bananas]

5. No, it's for India's nuclear weapons

Bush's "Nukes-For-Mangoes" deal was specifically to allow India to import uranium for its reactors and use indigenous uranium for nuclear weapons.

edit to add a link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x107257

[Vehl]

8. Not really

If India used even a small % of its available uranium it could have made hundreds if not thousands of nukes over the last decade.

Furthermore in case you are not aware, it has Thorium reactor(s) (the only country in the world which has done extensive extensive research into Thorium fueled nuclear reactors and plans to ) which produce U233 as a result. The resulting U233 can be used for nuclear weapons if India wishes to. I need not mention that India has the largest Thorium reserves in the world..in fact a whopping 25% of the world's reserves.

The Uranium was/is used as a stop gap measure till the Thorium reactors (one in operation and 5 others being built) come on line.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle

Advantages of a Thorium cycle

Weapons-grade fissionable material (233U) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from a thorium reactor;
Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste;
Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium
contains only 0.7% fissionable U-235;
Thorium cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction without priming,<22> so fission stops by default.

Thorium in nuclear reactors

India's Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world's first reactor which uses thorium rather than depleted uranium to achieve power flattening across the reactor core.<31> India, which has about 25% of the world's thorium reserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of a thorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fully operational by 2011, following which five more reactors will be constructed.<32> Considered to be a global leader in thorium-based fuel, India's new thorium reactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutonium core rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons. As accelerator-based systems can operate at sub-criticality they could be developed too, but that would require more research.<33> India currently envisages meeting 30% of its electricity demand through thorium-based reactors by 2050.<34>


.
.

Furthermore the IAEA report mentions that India possesses two thirds (67%) of global reserves of monazite, the primary thorium ore. The IAEA also states that recent reports have upgraded India's thorium deposits up from approximately 300,000 tonnes to 650,000 tonnes.<53>

The prevailing estimate of the economically available thorium reserves comes from the US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries (1996–2010):

In other words, if they wanted Uranium for Nukes, they need not have to jump through all these hoops as they already have ample supply to make the weapons in larger numbers. And given that the Indian Nuclear Triad will have a heavy Boomer(SLBM) % in the near future dont be surprised if they eventually level off at around 500-1000 warheads. The multiple thousands of the cold-war era powers are not needed anymore.

With the Thorium Reactors, India might very well be sitting on the largest potential pile of U233 if they so want. However unlike most of their neighbors, they are more interested in ensuring that the nuclear reactors provide energy security for ballooning power demands.


PS:

Refer to the Excellent series of articles posted by DU member NNadir on this topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x236129

If you asked me to design a fast spectrum reactor though, it wouldn't be a liquid metal reactor.

India, however, doesn't agree with me on that score. They are running a small liquid metal fast breeder reactor, the FBTR, (Fast Breeder Test Reactor) - it has operated for 25 years now - and are building a larger one, one that is commercial scale even though they call it a "prototype" reactor. Thus largest LMFBR under construction is now in India. It is the 500 MWe PFBR, for "Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor."

The reactor will run on, and will produce - at least in the early phase of operation - plutonium. I am personally fond of plutonium, and regard it as a, um, critical element that is very important to the the future of humanity.

The plan is to use this plutonium on a particularly novel kind of fuel that will be a ternary mixture of plutonium, thorium and uranium, and thus exploit India's vast reserves of thorium to produce energy. Eventually India will phase plutonium out, and run purely on thorium.

The development of novel fuels in India has involved the use of certain kinds of carbide fuels, and recently some of this fuel was irradiated for several years in the FBTR and achieved a remarkable "burn up" of 155 GWd/ton. A gigawatt-day is a unit of energy where the energy is calculated as power times time. It is one billion watts times 86,000 seconds = 86 trillion joules.

Typical burnups in US PWR and BWR reactors are on the order of 40 to 50 GWd/ton.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NNadir/137

[kristopher]

11. What is the CO2/kwh footprint of the FULL thorium fuel cycle?

Also what is the value of the subsidies for insurance to nuclear in India? The new law caps liability for operators at 1500 crore, with damages in excess of that either recoverable from vendors, paid by the government from tax levees, or paid by victims left uncompensated.

What is the value of the avoided costs of insurance comparable to what other commercial enterprises must carry?

[bananas]

12. Yes, really - India's reactors were running at half power due to lack of fuel

and the hard-liners still didn't want the nukes-for-mangoes deal.
It was more important to them to make weapons than to make electricity.
India was given a waiver of NSG requirements,
about half their reactors would be designated "civilian" and would use imported fuel,
the other half would be designated "military" and would use indigenous fuel.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575378492674624982.html

* JULY 20, 2010, 4:39 A.M. ET
India Nuclear Power Corp Implementing 36 Projects
By ERIC YEP

<snip>

Mr. Ghai said he expects the country's uranium supply to improve this year as more of the country's plants will likely start to fall under international safeguards. India's nuclear plants have been running at a lower capacity because of a shortage in uranium supply.

"Our generation capacity was at about 50% capacity last year. We expect it to exceed 60% this year and are targeting 68%."

<snip>

[CJvR]

6. For what?

It is not as if there is any shortage of Uranium in the world.

[damntexdem]

3. Oh, poor southeast India!

About to be subject to the quest for 'riches' and 'economic development.' Look for living standards to decline precipitously.

And for India to be treated to a future of irradiated rice.

[Vehl]

9. 2 things

1 South/South East India is the most economically prosperous region of India

2 The government owns the mining/reactor development ..not for-profit companies.


ps: India has another 30000 tons of uranium reserves in the North-east, but have not tapped it for Environmental reasons. If such prospecting were left to Private companies, like here in the US, every last ton of that reserve would have been mined...to hell with the environment.

PPS: I'm all for green technology, but I'm also a realist who knows that green tech cannot even come close to supplying an entire nation's power needs. This is way better than coal ("clean" or otherwise) or petroleum based energy production.

[zeaper]

4. If real, this will mean a lot of good jobs in a third world nation

I can remember growing up in central Wyoming in the 60's. At that time the uranium industry created an economic boom. There were lots of good paying jobs and work.

The only down side was the bust in the early 70’s, but a lot of great infrastructure was built, using those uranium dollars and more than a few millionaires were created.

[kristopher]

7. Processing and refining medium grade uranium ore significantly increases CO2 footprint of nuclear

[wtmusic]

10. But...but...all the world's uranium has already been found.

And we don't have enough. D'oh!

[Terry in Austin]

13. "Massive."

Yes, 60,000 tonnes is pretty massive if it's just you looking at it, holding a shovel.

But in perspective:

It's not quite a year's worth for the existing fleet of reactors, which is about 68,000 tonnes.

It's not quite 1% of the IAEA's "total identified resources" -- http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/2010/prn201009.html">6,306,300 tonnes.