India builds a nuclear reactor in three years and goes critical.

[NNadir]

Their reactor is more powerful than the Shippingport reactor which the US built in 3 years in 1957.

NEW NUCLEAR Search



New units at home, new opportunities abroad
27 February 2007

India's Kaiga 3 nuclear power reactor achieved criticality yesterday. The country is holding international talks, hoping to export similar models to developing countries.

Kaiga 3 is a 220 MWe pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) in Uttara Kannada in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka. Construction of the unit began in March 2002, and it achieved criticality - a sustained reaction - at 10.10am on 26 February. The unit's first power should be delivered to the grid at the end of March.

At a press conference following a celebratory ceremony, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said the construction technique had been perfected: "Five years is the international benchmark for completing nuclear power plants and along with the project completion costs for this unit, there is going to be a new benchmark."

The new reactor was constructed domestically for just Rs 984 ($22.33) per installed kW. NPCIL estimate it could do the same job in certain countries for Rs 1200 ($27.24) per kW. Compared to a global average price of new nuclear construction of $1500 per kW, Indian contractors could occupy a unique place in the world reactor market.

Speaking to Bloomberg, NPCIL chair SK Jain said, "We are trying to showcase our ability to supply this technology to a number of countries that want to benefit from nuclear power," adding, "We are very serious about grabbing the export market."

India is reportedly in talks with Cambodia, Indonesia Thailand and Vietnam over exporting the 220 MWe PHWR design, which is seen as suitable for countries with smaller electricity grids.

One particular hurdle that remains on the Indian side of any export deal is the conclusion of discussions on allowing India to participate fully in nuclear trade.

India has been almost completely excluded from such business since it refused to sign the 1968 Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), calling it unfair. Normally, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) confines nuclear trade to NPT signatories but India's record on non-proliferation has spurred countries like Australia, Russia and the USA to negotiate their own bilateral agreements to safeguard the use of nuclear materials and technology.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newNuclear/270207New_units_at_home_new_opporunities_abroad.shtml

[demnan]

1. I hope they run their nuclear plant

better than they run their trains.

[phantom power]

2. Holy shit. $27 per installed kilowatt?

[Dead_Parrot]

8. That's insane

Counting on my toes, that makes the entire plant under $5 million.

I wonder if Utsira can get a refund?

On a more serious note, power at that sort of price would make sucking the CO₂ out of the atmosphere, converting it to hydrocarbons and pumping it back into the oilfields a viable option. Hopefully NNadir will come up on some insight on the rector design & specs.

[phantom power]

10. Why yes, yes it would. That's almost (dare I say it?) too cheap to meter.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. What is to be done with the waste?

Dump it in our dying oceans? Bury it for our future generations to unearth? WTF? Short term solution causing long-term pollution. Nuclear energy is NOT a viable and acceptable energy source yet.

[phantom power]

4. Store it. Compared to CO2 it takes up no room at all.

I mean that literally. Compared to the 80 billion tons of CO2 per year we release, it actually takes up no room, to some number of decimal places.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. Store it in what? Half life and volatility are kind of important.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/physics/sobel/Nucphys/waste.html

The problem of radioactive waste is finding a way to keep it isolated, over a long period of time, from the biosphere -- particularly from underground water sources. It cannot simply be placed in ordinary containers. Radioactivity itself tends to damage materials like steel and other metals. Furthermore, a large quantity of radioactive matter tends to get very hot, and this also weakens containers. One important approach is to incorporate waste in certain kinds of glass and ceramic materials that are very resistant to being dissolved in water, or to any chemical reaction with the environment. Certain kinds of natural underground sites are effective in preventing the flow of chemicals, and thus can keep the waste isolated.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Glass and ceramic however are sensitive to cracking

and stresses of potential ground pressures.

[phantom power]

11. Compared to CO2, nuclear waste doesn't even register on my richter scale.

Climate change is on track to kill billions of people in the next century. To say nothing of mass-extinction of other species. Widespread application of nuclear power could save us from that. How many people have been killed by nuclear waste? How many species have been driven to extincion by nuclear waste?

[HCE SuiGeneris]

14. My intrusion into the clique seems ill-advised.

Carry on. I'll not insert any further comments or observations. Hope you get it all figured out.

[phantom power]

16. I don't follow. Expressing my views on nuclear power makes me part of a clique?

[NNadir]

18. Good, because you have nothing sensible to say.

You know the old saying, "it is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth..."

[Dead_Parrot]

19. What's ill-advised...

...Is jumping into a forum where we watch the planet dying hour by hour, and saying something as dumb as "but what about the waste"?

~4.5 million tons of CO₂ have been added to the atmosphere since NNadir posted the OP. you come up with a way of stopping that, then you can complain about the used fuel rods that are sitting in storage.

[bananas]

32. It's not a clique - it's a cult.

Some of us try to talk sense into them, but they've been hopelessly brinwashed.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. recycle it, maybe?

The Japanese and Europeans turn it back into fuel. I guess you are happier with killing the entire fucking planet through CO₂? Nice.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. So give YOUR suggestion

I'm all ears.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Porcupine]

25. They have an arrangement with Pakistan.........nt.

.

[JohnWxy]

26. Whatever is done with it, you can be sure the COST of managing waste wasn't included in the cost

figure quoted. LEt's see, x of tons of waste for 17,000 years .. my guess is it would come to a fairly large number. And managing radioactive waste is quite a bit trickier than managing any non-radioactive material.

[Dead_Parrot]

27. That's rich...

...coming from the man who wants to bury a trillion tons of gas in the hope it will stay put for 5 billion years.

Perhaps you'd like to put a figure to x, and see if it's bigger than 1,000,000,000,000.
Or work out if 17,000 is bigger than 5,000,000,000.
Or find out if a lump of glass dissipates into the air faster than a lump of CO₂.
Or learn about nuclear fuel recycling, of course.

Take your time.

[bananas]

5. six years - they broke ground in March 2001

and started pouring concrete in March 2002.
http://www.npcil.nic.in/kapp3&4.asp

Major Milestones Achieved

Activity Kaiga-3 Kaiga-4
PHT Hydro Test September - 2006 -
Feeder Installation March - 2006 -
Coolant Channel Installation Nov - 2005 May - 2006
Calandria Tube Installation May - 2005 March - 2006
Grout Endshield July - 2004 November - 2005
Release Calandria Vault for EndShield Erection July - 2003 Sept - 2004
Raft Completion June - 2002 Sept. - 2002
First Pour of Concrete March - 2002 May-2002
Ground Break March - 2001 March-2001

[NNadir]

12. Actually a ground breaking is a ceremony.

But you're right, the first concrete was poured in 2002.

I guess the Indians will cancel the reactor on the grounds that I have made a mistake. This obviously calls for the reactor and all nuclear reactors on earth to be shut down and replaced by whatever it is that you and your friends think will solve climate change.

The Indians are certain to be criticized on the grounds that it took them a year longer to build the reactor than it took to build Shippingport in the 1950's. This makes nuclear energy an international failure.

Why don't you write to the Indians and inform them of what you have discovered, before they build 20 or 30 more reactors?

[bananas]

28. Ground-breaking is when they start digging the foundation

It starts with a ceremony, then the bulldozers and steamshovels go right to work.

[NNadir]

29. Not necessarily in India. I went to several there.

In India, sometimes there are no bulldozers, no steam shovels and no concrete mixers.

[phantom power]

20. Seriously, can anybody explain how they are delivering $27/kilowatt?

That's, like, science fiction cheap.

[NNadir]

21. It does indeed.

I've been to India and I can tell you that there are people everywhere who would be thrilled with a dollar a day job, but that's not the whole story for sure.

Let's be clear that the Indians have been largely excluded as exporters of nuclear reactors. I'm absolutely convinced that some of this is marketing and that there is something wrong with this picture. They want attention for their technology and this is certainly a way to get it. It would be interesting to see if they would sign a contract with someone in another country on turn-key terms.

I would think that the heavy water alone - the Indian reactors are knock offs of the CANDU - would cost more than this, never mind the zirconium tubing, etc.

The timeline is though, something that cannot be concealed very well.

If they are building reactors at these costs, they need to build a lot of them quickly. This will make them extremely competitive with the rest of the world on their energy costs alone, particularly if they pursue their advertised thorium fuel cycle. The vast bulk on the costs of nuclear power are capital costs.

[phantom power]

22. Hmm. They did say they are "serious about grabbing the export market."

Maybe they're pulling a Microsoft? Eat part of the cost to undercut the competition. Still. If they'd quoted something like $500/kilowatt, that would have been super-cheap.

Could this be a reporting error?

[RC]

24. A large part of the cost, a very large part of the cost is micro inspections

of every single action and part that goes into a nuclear reactor. Tone down the unneeded non nuclear parts of the inspections and the costs come down.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Well...

...India do make their own HW, and googling suggests they're not not short of zirconium either... Maybe it is just compounded savings from dirt cheap labour, doing everything internally rather than paying the normal market rate. I'd certainly be interested in seeing a breakdown of the costs, though - and I'd be a bit worried about how of that money they've saved by not putting in redundant safety systems.

[bananas]

30. This article says US $984 per kilowatt

http://www.sahilonline.org/english/coastalnews.asp?nid=2338&sid=567655032

<snip>

He also said the project completion cost of about Rs 2500 crore would set a new benchmark in cost efficiency. The estimated cost of US $984 per kilowatt of unit power achieved at Kaiga was well within the international benchmark of generating nuclear power within US $1000 per kilowatt of power, Dr Kakodkar said.

<snip>

Mr Jain added that NPCIL had attained maturity in nuclear technology and had achieved the target of providing power at USD 1000 per KW. He disclosed that NPCIL would also be looking to reduce the power tariff. At present, NPCIL power is supplied at Rs 2.30 per unit which the company would try to reduce to Rs 2.10 per unit, he said.

<snip>

[Dead_Parrot]

31. That's a lot more believable...

...and I'll sleep better knowing the cooling system wasn't made out of recycled tin cans to save money. :D

[NNadir]

33. It looks like they're planning construction on 18 new reactors in the next 5 years.

Ten 1000 MW and eight 700MW.

Impressive.

[phantom power]

34. Aha, it was a reporting error. The original said Rs984, not $984.