NUCLEAR FUELS.

Abstract

Taking into account India's need for a maximum possible degree of self-sufficiency, its moderate uranium and superb thorium reserves, as well as its lack of facilities for isotope enrichment, its atomic power strategy has been planned to function in three stages. The first stage will have natural uranium fueled heavy water moderated reactors. The plutonium accumulated from these reactors will be used in the second generation (breeder) reactors to convert thorium (placed as a blanket) to uranium-233, besides generating power. Finally, uranium-233 will be burnt in the third generation reactors, consisting of both fast breeders as well as thermal near-breeders, which would be optimized to run exclusively on the thorium-U 233 cycle.