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Indigenous FBR to be commissioned soon

Country to join elite group after Kalpakkam exercise.

Chennai: India will soon join the group of elite nations when it commissions it’s first indigenously designed 500-MW fast breeder reactor (FBR) at Kalpakkam near here this year-end or early next year.

The work on completing this FBR is progressing and the officials hope to commission it once the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) gives its nod, says Sekhar Basu, chairman Atomic Energy Commission, who participated in the Hindustan University’s seventh convocation on Saturday. Mr Basu who has spent about four decades in India’s atomic energy programme candidly admits that there has been some delay in commissioning the reactor.

“It will become critical this year-end or early next year. There has been little bit of delay not because of technical problems. This needs to be sorted out. We have to get clearance (from AERB),” he said. In an informal chat with pressperson on the varsity’s campus after presenting the degrees, he said, “we have started heating up the system…the temperature has to reach 200 degrees and then sodium filling will happen by the end of this year. We will have to satisfy the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.” This is for the first time that India is utilising such high technology

The preheating activities prior to sodium loading is being pursued under rigorous regulatory oversight. Asked how many fast breeder reactors are required to meet the power needs of the country, Mr Basu replied that the number was not of paramount importance. Even a small rector has been functioning for the last quarter century. “We are planning (to establish) two more such fast breeder reactors in Kalpakkam which may be of 600 MW capacity each,” he informed

The need of the hour is to address the carbon emission issue by reducing the core component i.e. fossil fuel component and brining down the emission level by 45 per cent.

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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