Kudankulam nuclear power plant's unit-2 to be ready in eight months

HYDERABAD: The unit-2 of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu is likely to become operational in the next eight months. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), Mumbai, director Sekhar Basu said, as planned the second reactor would be operational at the most in a year’s time.
Two more reactors have also been planned at Kudankulam. Interacting with newsmen at the 41st annual day celebrations of the Nuclear Fuel Complex here, Sekhar Basu said the spent fuel at Kudankulam will have to be stored as the plant comes under safeguards.
The spent fuel will have to be stored for at least 10 years. He said reprocessing can be taken up but there would be a lot of procedures to go through, including getting permissions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “We have the technology for reprocessing of spent fuel but since the plant is under safeguards, permissions are required,” he said. Basu said more storages will have to be created away from the reactor for storing of spent fuel, if the reprocessing is not taken up.
Sekhar Basu said the 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) by BHAVINI, a government of India enterprise, at Kalpakkam will reach the ‘critical’ stage by the end year and will be ready to be commissioned.
While the new government at the centre is keen on completing the planned projects, Sekhar Basu said several bottlenecks would also have to be removed if India were to achieve 50,000 MW nuclear power generation by 2030. “The bottlenecks include finding land for projects. Secondly, we have seen that people resist the projects. Clearances also have to be got. And finally, the issue of funding, which is important arises,” he said.