Chennai: As a part of making the 500mw-prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) a completely self-sufficient project, a fuel fabrication and reprocessing facility for it at Kalpakkam has been finalised.

Speaking on the development Dr Baldev Raj, director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) says, "We have mastered the fuel cycle technology. The mixed oxide (MOX) fuel has achieved a burn up of 50,000mw day / ton in the fast breeder test reactor. And it will go up to over 1-lakh-mw day / ton." (The amount of thermal energy released by a tonne of initially-present fissile elements [or a tonne of whole fuel] is termed as burn-up. Alternatively, burn-up can also be termed as the number of fission that have occurred per one-hundred-atoms of initially-present fissile elements.)

As a result, officials feel that a fuel processing facility near the PFBR would be advantageous. The initial plan was to bring the fuel from the Tarapur atomic power plant.

While site clearance approval is awaited, officials say construction work for the proposed facility will start in 2007. This facility alone is expected to provide employment to around 1,000 people.

Similarly a new desalination plant is also under consideration to meet the water requirements after PFBR and fuel fabrication and reprocessing units go on stream.

IGCAR, which designed the PFBR, is one of the two promoters of Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (Bhavini) the company that owns the Rs3,492-crore project. The other promoter is the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited.

Nearly 50 per cent of the project cost will be spent on nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) like the core reactor, steam generator, heat exchangers etc.

Eighty per cent of the project cost will be funded through equity - 76 per cent to be held by the government of India and 4 per cent by Nuclear Power Corporation of India. The remaining 20 per cent will be funded by loans from financial institutions.

According to S C Chetal, director, 'reactor engineering group', IGCAR and also a director of Bhavini, "Initially the government will infuse its share of funds as per requirements and then other sources will be tapped."

Meanwhile, orders worth Rs660 crore for plant and machinery and other works related to the construction of PFBR have been placed.

Says project director Prabhat Kumar, "Equipment worth Rs280 crore is under various stages of delivery while fresh orders for Rs380 crore have been placed with 14 vendors."

According to him new orders are for items like main vessel, inner vessel, steam generator, thermal baffle, core support structure, core catcher, intermediate heat exchanger, roof slab, grid plate, thermal insulator and others. The major orders have been bagged by L&T, Walchand Nagar Industries, MTR, Hyderabad, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Kirloskar Brothers.

Further tenders for the rest of the plant - project works not related to the nuclear steam generation system - will be finalised within three months.

Construction work resumes
Meanwhile, the PFBR construction which had had come to a standstill when the tsunami waves lashed Kalpakkam coast and seawater inundated a huge construction site, has now been restarted.

Removing the water from the 6-metre deep water and 1-metre sludge and other muck from the 18-metre deep pit was a major task. In addition, the pit contained several construction material and equipment like concrete mixer trucks.

Officials have decided to junk the over 1-metre thick concrete flooring at the PFBR construction site and build another layer afresh over it. Before doing that, however, around 10mm of the already concretised layer will have to be scrapped and a fresh coat of water proofing laid.

"This will increase the height of the super structure by 1.5m with all other project specifications remaining unchanged," says Dr.Raj.

Though there were around 150 workers inside the pit during the tsunami disaster, all of them managed to rush out within few minutes after B R K Nair, an engineer from Gammon India Limited, who was outside the pit at a height alerted his colleagues inside the pit through his walkie-talkie about the seawater filling the construction site.

Asked about the new safety measures that are being planned in the wake of tsunami, Dr.Raj says, "A boundary security wall along the coast will be built. This, accompanied by sand dunes, dykes and plantation with thousands of trees along the coast will prevent large scale damage if another tsunami occurs in the future."

The height of the wall will be above the observed maximum tsunami level. The design has been provided by the Ocean Engineering Centre at IIT-Madras and reviewed by a national committee comprising experts from Indian Meteorological Department, Central Water and Power Research Station, Pune, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa and Structural Engineering Research Centre, Chennai.

The 4km-wall is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2006.

In addition, installation of an additional warning system at Kalpakkam township, a solar powered wireless communication system, improvements to electrical system including additional diesel generator systems, construction of emergency shelters amongst others are being planned.

Already 35,000 saplings have been planted along the coast in association with the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai.