India opens new reprocessing plant

India opens new reprocessing plant
Nuclear scientists and engineers were called 'nation builders' by prime minister Manmohan Singh as he inaugurated India's latest reprocessing plant.

Singh opens the Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant-2

The facility at Tarapur will break down highly radioactive used nuclear fuel to extract uranium and plutonium for reuse in fast neutron reactors.
"We have come a long way since the first reprocessing of spent fuel in India in 1964 at Trombay," said Singh at yesterday's ceremony, "The recycling and optimal utilization of uranium is essential to meet our current and future energy security needs."



There are already several reprocessing plants in India - all operated by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre - at Tarapur, Trombay and Kalpakkam. Small plants at each site were supplemented in 1998 by a new one of 100 tonnes per year at Kalpakkam, and this is now being extended to so that it may handle carbide fuel from the Fast Breeder Test Reactor.

The new plant inaugurated yesterday at Tarapur also has a capacity of 100 tonnes per year, and another entirely new facility is under construction at Kalpakkam.

Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency told World Nuclear News that this second reprocessing plant at Tarapur is not among the facilities covered by the early 'type 66' safeguards agreement or the more comprehensive India-specific safeguards regime agreed last year.