The importance of India in global nuclear renaissance is increasing as the country will be needed by the international community in the long run, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India Dr R Chidambaram said in Mumbai on Monday.
Although India wants the world in the short-term in nuclear energy the world is going to need India in the long term, he said while inaugurating a day-long seminar on 'Recycling for Electronic and automotive Industry at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education.'
"This is what I say in my lectures abroad," he said talking about the closed fuel cycle, which is adopted by India that helps in a comprehensive nuclear waste management.
In many countries, nuclear technology has stagnated and when nuclear technology stagnates, knowledge management becomes a problem. Whereas India and China are the two main countries where nuclear industry growth is seen due to surging energy demand, Chidambaram said.
The knowledge management in nuclear energy is booming and young people still take a lot of interest in joining the field in India while there is slow R&D growth in other parts of the world, including where there is stagnation, he said.
So for us, nuclear knowledge management is not a problem, Chidambaram said.
While talking about nuclear waste management, he said India uses closed fuel cycle and this is also required because the same amount of uranium, when you recycle it through fast breeder reactors, will give you 50 times more power and if you close the fuel cycle with thorium, maybe it will give you 600 times more power.
"So if you want to optimally utilise nuclear fuel resources of the world uranium and thorium, you will have to close the nuclear fuel cycle. So, the importance of the three-stage programme goes beyond just building the first generation of reactors," Chidambaram said.
Americans have access to cheaper uranium but now they are also looking at reprocessing but the plutonium stored over a period as waste disposal Yucca mountain is actually a plutonium mine and since the half-life of plutonium is over 24,000 years, it could be used later as other radioactive products in the spent fuel would have died down.
On the automotive and electronic waste management, he said he was interested in evolving guidelines as an immediate step to handle hazardous waste in an organised and safe manner, which could later on be recommended for country legislation.
Since India has developed a throwing away culture recently and with the exponential growth of electronic and automotive production and consumption, if steps and precautions are not taken to manage them, India will end up facing a serious crisis, he added.
