{"id":6411,"date":"2022-12-08T09:24:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-08T03:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=6411"},"modified":"2025-03-27T14:41:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T09:11:51","slug":"what-is-indias-nuclear-power-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/what-is-indias-nuclear-power-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"What is India\u2019s Nuclear Power Programme?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>India has a 3-stage nuclear programme.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The 3-stage nuclear programme is developed with the aim of utilizing the vast Thorium reserves in India (about 25% of the world)<\/li>\n<li>Besides India has limited availability of Uranium reserves (about 2% of the world\u2019s uranium reserves)<\/li>\n<li><strong>1st Stage<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors are based on natural uranium that contains 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235.<\/li>\n<li>U-235 being fissile sets up the chain reaction and U-238 being non-fissile gets converted to Pu-239 as a byproduct (spent fuel) which is in turn used in the Fast Breeder Reactors in the 2nd<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>2nd Stage<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Fast Breeder Reactors are primarily based on Plutonium.<\/li>\n<li>Further the breeder reactors use mix of Plutonium-239 produced in the 1st stage and U-238 that is abundantly found on earth to produce Plutonium inside the reactor.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Note<\/strong> that U-238 is not fissile material and thus cannot set up chain reaction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Since the amount of Plutonium produced inside the reactor is more than that initially used, it is called Breeder reactor.<\/li>\n<li>In order to increase the probability of neutron hitting U-238, these reactors do not use a moderator to slow down neutrons and thus they are called Fast Breeder Reactors.<\/li>\n<li>Once the Plutonium-239 is completely used, Thorium is introduced in the reactor to convert it into U-233 that will be used in 3rd<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>3rd Stage<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Thermal Breeder Reactors uses U-233 that is produced in the 2nd stage using thorium-232.<\/li>\n<li>Thorium is also not radioactive and thus not fissile.<\/li>\n<li>Since these reactors also produce U-233 out of Thorium-232 they are called breeder reactors.<\/li>\n<li>India has abundant thorium reserves in the form of monazite sand, and therefore the 3rd stage is critical for India\u2019s nuclear energy basket.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) Presently, how many nuclear reactors are operating in India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Presently, India has 22 operating reactors, with an installed capacity of 6780 MWe. Among these eighteen reactors are Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and four are Light Water Reactors (LWRs).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/business\/india-plans-to-build-more-nuclear-power-plants\/article66235286.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Hindu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India\u2019s Nuclear power program is a 3-staged program aimed to utilise vast Thorium reserves in India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}