Dummy Fuel Loaded Into Newly Completed Kudankulam Nuclear Reactor in India.

[NNadir]

And no, the dummy in question was not a disciple of his Holiness Mark. Z. Jacobson, aka, "God."

The "dummy fuel" was lead which has a similar density to uranium, and thus can be used to test mechanisms for the final shakedown before loading nuclear fuel and going critical.

The first of India's Russian-designed nuclear power reactors has taken a step closer to start-up with the loading of dummy fuel assemblies into the core of Kudankulam 1.

According to Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), the first of two VVERs currently under construction at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu is over 95% completed. Dummy fuel assemblies, made of lead, are now being loaded into the reactor core to enable full-scale testing of thermo-hydraulic systems prior to loading with the actual fuel. Dummy fuel loading is due to be completed by the end of May, followed by major testing of the primary coolant system before the real fuel is loaded. The dummy fuel will also be used to test the special containers that will be used to transport actual fuel assemblies from the fuel storage building, and to calibrate the refuelling machine, which has already been erected and commissioned...

...Further Russian reactors figure in India's plans for 20,000 MWe nuclear capacity on line by 2020 and 63,000 MWe by 2032. Speaking to reporters at Kudankulam after the announcement of the dummy fuel loading, NPCIL chairman and managing director SK Jain said that ten more light water reactors would be built with overseas assistance during the country's 12th Five Year Plan. According to reports in The Hindu, four of these would be Russian-supplied (the fifth and sixth units at Kudankulam plus two at Haripur in west Bengal), with four reactors supplied by US companies and two supplied by France.

Jain was also quoted as saying that first concrete for the third and fourth Indian-designed pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) to be built at the Kakrapar plant in Gujarat would take place within the next 6-8 weeks...

The Russian VVER reactor, a light water reactor, has a rated maximum power of 950 MWe. As I never tire of pointing out, the average continuous power derived from all the wind turbines in the entire nation of Denmark, including those on land and those at sea near their offshore dangerous oil and dangerous gas rigs, is 700 MWe. This can be calculated by noting that all the wind turbines in Denmark produced 22 petajoules of electricity in 2008, and then dividing by the number of seconds in a year to find average power output. Thus to produce as much energy as the entire nation of Denmark produces from wind in one building, the new Indian reactor will need to operate at (100*700/950) = 74% capacity utilization, which is relatively easy to do, as most reactors around the world operate at close to 90% of capacity utilization, making them the most reliable energy machines on earth.

http://www.ens.dk/en-US/supply/Renewable-energy/WindPower/Facts-about-Wind-Power/Key-figures-statistics/Sider/Forside.aspx">The 22 PJ figure from Danish Wind Comes From This Page on the Danish Energy Agency's Website.

[jpak]

1. and when they irradiant real fuel and remove it, they can extract the plutonium to make new bombs

yup

[NNadir]

2. You would need to know some nuclear physics to understand why this won't happen but...

Nope, one cannot explain it to a technical Lilliputan, since they are completely and totally unaware of the concept of plutonium vectors.

It would be fun and interesting if there was ONE anti-nuke who could actually show evidence for one nuclear war in the last half a century or so, during which they have been continually advertising that nuclear war is inevitable.

It would be even more interesting if there was JUST ONE anti-nuke scare monger who could balance his or her imaginination against the actually observed incidence of dangerous fossil fuel wars, Iran/Iraq (One million dead) World War II (40 million dead), the Biafran Revolution (death toll unknown), two US/Iraq wars (hundreds of thousands dead)...we could go on, but why bother?

Anti-nukes have never give a fuck how many people die while we all are supposed to wait in stupid silence for their never realized renewable nirvana to arrive.

We could ask why anti-nukes have no sweat over dangerous fossil fuel accidents, but that would be assuming that they were anything other than selective attention obsessive/compulsives.

We could ask why anti-nukes haven't call to ban oil because of the World Trade Center Terrorism or Oklahoma City, but that would assume that anti-nukes gave a fuck about terrorism, which they don't.

We could ask why anti-nukes don't give a fuck about the millions of people each year who die from air pollution from dangerous fossil fuel and combusted biomass waste, but that would assume that anti-nukes give a fuck about the environment's effects on health, but they don't.

The Indian nuclear fuel plan has some of the most sophisticated technology in the world for the phase out of plutonium. I don't happen to agree that this is a good idea, by the way, since I think we need more plutonium, not less of it.

But then again, I'm not some uneducated drunk muttering in my beer about what could be. I'm a person who is connected to what exists.

Nuclear power is not risk free, but it need not be risk free to be of lower risk than all of its alternatives, including the alternative of waiting decade after decade after decade for fantasizing brats to recognize that their line of "renewables will save us" bull has done nothing but waste the time of all humanity and the money of all humanity chasing rabbits down a rabbit hole.

My personal opinion is that no amount of swilling Allen's Coffee Brandy and muttering can make the so called renewables energy industry a significant player. It hasn't done so in the last 8 years that I've been here listening to this swill. In fact, none of the nuclear wars predicted by airheads here over the last 8 yeats took place, nor none have taken place since the dangerous fossil fuel green washer Amory Lovins predicted, in 1980, that the inevitable outcome of nuclear power would be nuclear war.

There are less nuclear warheads on earth than there were in 1980, and much of the highly enriched uranium that was in US and Soviet weapons has been fissioned in American nuclear reactors in such a way as to make it unsuitable for remanufacture of weapons.

Have a nice evening glorying in the waste of our vanishing resources in hopes of repeating the last 30 years.

[jpak]

3. I'm sorry but in the real nonambien delusional world, India reprocesses nuclear "fuel" to make bombs

yup

and no amount of sickfuck rhetoric can change that

nope

[NNadir]

4. Actually Indian technology for fuel reprocessing is described in many scientific journals.

Here's just one account: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TXN-4TW1501-8&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F15%2F2009&_alid=1317125209&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5595&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=13&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=23d7d25e387f0cf9f3c848e8323059c0">Journal of Nuclear Materials Volume 385, Issue 1, 15 March 2009, Pages 142-147

Title: Plutonium and the Indian atomic energy programme.

Intro Text:

Plutonium has a key role to play in the development of atomic energy in India which is based on a three stage programme tailored to suit the available resources of moderate uranium (84600 t) and vast thorium (225000 t). Pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) form the first phase of the program in which 17 reactors have been installed with a capacity of 4120 MWe and this program is already in the commercial phase. Fast breeder reactors (FBR) form the second stage. By enabling the production of 233U, needed for the thorium based reactors of the third stage, FBRs serve as the vital link between the first and the third stages of Indian nuclear energy road map. Use of plutonium-based fuels in FBRs and breeding plutonium using a closed fuel cycle concept are inevitable for India because of the very limited sources of uranium. Fast breeder test reactor (FBTR) at Kalpakkam uses plutonium rich mixed carbide fuels and the 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) under construction will use uranium–plutonium mixed oxide fuels. Future FBRs will be based on alloy fuels containing plutonium. Hence the development of plutonium-based fuels and their fuel cycles is of paramount importance for the development of FBRs
which will be discussed in this paper.

2. Historical perspective

In view of the importance of developing the plutonium technology, reprocessing of spent fuels to separate plutonium was established with the commissioning of plutonium plant in Trombay in 1965 which processed the fuels from the research reactors, CIRUS and DHRUVA. Subsequently, the spent fuels from PHWRs were reprocessed at the plant in Tarapur. Technology for the fabrication of plutonium-based fuels was established in the Radiometallurgy Laboratory of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) where the carbide fuels of FBTR are being fabricated. Uranium–plutonium mixed oxide fuels containing 1–4% plutonium oxide used in the boiling water reactors (BWR) at Tarapur are being fabricated in the BARC plant at Tarapur. It is proposed to use thorium–plutoniummixed oxides as fuels in the advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) which is planned to be constructed.

My personal opinion is that you don't know doodly squat about the use of nuclear materials, instead choosing to live in a dogmatic fantasy.

You are free however to submit a paper to Nuclear Materials that offers the light weight uneducated blogger opinion that all Indians are murderers unlike those wood burning carcinogen spewing Mainers we always hear about.

In any case Indian nuclear scientists don't give a fuck what spoiled trust fund brats in the United States think. They have work to do.

Have a nice Bailey's Coffee Brandy plastered evening.

[Kolesar]

5. Bet it's not cost effective

Otherwise CCheney would have cited its cost numbers