India designs new version of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor: Kakodkar

[FarCenter]

India has designed a new version of Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) which will use low enriched uranium along with thorium as fuel, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar announced on Wednesday in Vienna.

"A new version of AHWR named Advanced Heavy Water Reactor-Low Enriched Uranium (AHWR-LEU) that uses low enriched uranium along with thorium as fuel has been designed recently," Mr. Kakodkar said at the International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference.

The reactor has a significantly lower requirement of mined uranium per unit energy produced as compared to most of the current generation thermal reactors, Mr. Kakodkar said.

"This version can also meet the requirement of medium sized reactors in countries with small grids while meeting the requirements of next generation systems," Mr. Kakodkar said indicating that India was ready for export of such reactors in the near future.

"While we strongly advocate recycle option, AHWR-LEU would also compete very favourably even in once through mode of fuel cycle (where spent fuel is stored without reprocessing)," he said adding that the Department of Atomic energy has circulated a brochure of AHWR-LEU at the Conference for the benefit of potential customers.

The already designed and developed 300 MWe AHWR by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, which is expected to start production soon, is mainly a thorium-fuelled reactor with several advanced passive safety features, Mr. Kakodkar said.

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http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article21268.ece

[sabbat hunter]

1. Excellent to hear

now if they can get it to work with "light" water it would be even better!