“Risingintolerance” of another kind; privilege motion against BJD MP Jay Panda for hisopinions
REPORTS “Rising intolerance” of another kind; privilege
motion against BJD MP Jay Panda for his opinions
ByOpIndia StaffPosted on December 4, 2015
1.5KSHARES
6 MPs of Rajya Sabha have filed a breach of privilege notice
against Lok Sabha MP Baijayant Jay Panda of Biju Janta Dal (BJD) for his
opinions. Of late, Mr. Panda has been arguing for constitutional and political
reforms where powers, especially the veto powers of the upper house i.e. the
Rajya Sabha are rationalized.
Jay Panda, known for his frank opinions inside and outside
the Parliament, has specially argued for reduced powers of Rajya Sabha so that
it is not able to block the popular mandate of the day.
His views have become relevant in wake of recent events
where the current NDA government has been unable to push legislative reforms
because it doesn’t enjoy majority in the upper house.
Last month in Goa , Mr.
Panda had argued for the same during the India Ideas Conclave. Having been a
Rajya Sabha MP himself earlier, he conceded that the existence of the upper
house was necessary for checks and balances, but added that “indirectly elected
houses like the UK
Lords don’t have a veto, and neither should the Rajya Sabha, unless it becomes
directly elected like the US Senate.”
He elaborated upon those views last week in an article for
Times of India where he cited examples of US, UK ,
and Italy to show that
globally it was unparalleled the way Rajya Sabha in India could block the popular
mandate.
Italy’s upper house had recently voted to drastically reduce
its own powers, Panda pointed out, making a case of Indian upper house to
rethink its powers to block reforms of a popular government.
In his article, he further argued that if the Rajya Sabha’s
veto powers were to be untouched, its selection process should be changed
allowing most of its members to be elected directly. “That would make its
members’ agendas much less insular, and more broadly aligned with public
interest,” he argued.
However, his views have upset some members of the Rajya
Sabha, especially of those parties who have been crying about “growing
intolerance”, who have decided to move a privilege motion against him.
When I was
ten years old, Rajmohan Gandhi, the Mahatma's grandson, visited our school.
Cathedral and John
Connon School
The school
has always had a diverse mix of students - from Salman Rushdie and Ratan Tata
to those from humble backgrounds. Jews, Parsis, Bohras, Christians, Khojas and
Hindus formed the most plural student body anyone could imagine.
Rajmohan
Gandhi had begun a movement in the mid-1960s called Moral Re-Armament (MRA).
One of its programmes was India Arise. All us ten-year-olds were asked to be a
part of it. Throughout the decade I spent in Cathedral, before being packed off
at 16 to West Buckland
School in Devon , England
Religion
was taboo. The fact that we were at a Protestant Christian school with a
British headmaster (Reverend George Ridding) never once struck us. Cricket,
tennis and our rock band, "The Bandits", where I played rhythm
guitar, occupied most of our time apart from the occasional cramming before
term exams.
Decades
later, not much has changed at Cathedral
School India
The mood, actor
Aamir Khan says, is now one of despondency. Others say fear haunts them. Fear
of what? They don't say. Why despondency? Aamir doesn't say.
Thorium is
more abundant in nature than uranium.
It is
fertile rather than fissile, and can only be used as a fuel in conjunction with
a fissile material such as recycled plutonium.
Thorium
fuels can breed fissile uranium-233 to be used in various kinds of nuclear
reactors.
Molten salt
reactors are well suited to thorium fuel, as normal fuel fabrication is
avoided.
The use of
thorium as a new primary energy source has been a tantalizing prospect for many
years. Extracting its latent energy value in a cost-effective manner remains a
challenge, and will require considerable R&D investment. This is occurring
preeminently in China , with
modest US
Nature and
sources of thorium
Thorium is
a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the
Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of
thunder. It is found in small amounts in most rocks and soils, where it is
about three times more abundant than uranium. Soil contains an average of
around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium. Thorium is very insoluble, which
is why it is plentiful in sands but not in seawater, in contrast to uranium.
Thorium
exists in nature in a single isotopic form – Th-232 – which decays very slowly
(its half-life is about three times the age of the Earth). The decay chains of
natural thorium and uranium give rise to minute traces of Th-228, Th-230 and
Th-234, but the presence of these in mass terms is negligible. It decays
eventually to lead-208.
When pure,
thorium is a silvery white metal that retains its lustre for several months.
However, when it is contaminated with the oxide, thorium slowly tarnishes in
air, becoming grey and eventually black. When heated in air, thorium metal
ignites and burns brilliantly with a white light. Thorium oxide (ThO2), also
called thoria, has one of the highest melting points of all oxides (3300°C) and
so it has found applications in light bulb elements, lantern mantles, arc-light
lamps, welding electrodes and heat-resistant ceramics. Glass containing thorium
oxide has both a high refractive index and wavelength dispersion, and is used
in high quality lenses for cameras and scientific instruments.
Thorium
oxide (ThO2) is relatively inert and does not oxidise further, unlike UO2. It
has higher thermal conductivity and lower thermal expansion than UO2, as well
as a much higher melting point. In nuclear fuel, fission gas release is much lower
than in UO2.
The most
common source of thorium is the rare earth phosphate mineral, monazite, which
contains up to about 12% thorium phosphate, but 6-7% on average. Monazite is
found in igneous and other rocks but the richest concentrations are in placer
deposits, concentrated by wave and current action with other heavy minerals.
World monazite resources are estimated to be about 16 million tonnes, 12 Mt of
which are in heavy mineral sands deposits on the south and east coasts of India Idaho
The
IAEA-NEA publication Uranium 2014: Resources, Production and Demand (often
referred to as the Red Book) gives a figure of 6.2 million tonnes of total
known and estimated resources. Data for reasonably assured and inferred
resources recoverable at a cost of $80/kg Th or less are given in the table
below, excluding some less-certain Asian figures. Some of the figures are based
on assumptions and surrogate data for mineral sands (monazite x assumed Th
content), not direct geological data in the same way as most mineral resources.
Estimated
world thorium resources1
Country Tonnes
Other
countries 1,725,000
World total 6,355,000
There is no
international or standard classification for thorium resources and identified
Th resources do not have the same meaning in terms of classification as
identified U resources. Thorium is not a primary exploration target and
resources are estimated in relation to uranium and rare earths resources.
Source:
OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2014: Resources, Production and Demand ('Red
Book')1, using the lower figures of any range.
Monazite is
extracted in India , Brazil , Vietnam
and Malaysia
Thorium as
a nuclear fuel
Thorium
(Th-232) is not itself fissile and so is not directly usable in a thermal
neutron reactor. However, it is ‘fertile’ and upon absorbing a neutron will
transmute to uranium-233 (U-233)a, which is an excellent fissile fuel
materialb. In this regard it is similar to uranium-238 (which transmutes to
plutonium-239). All thorium fuel concepts therefore require that Th-232 is
first irradiated in a reactor to provide the necessary neutron dosing to
produce protactinium-233. The Pa-233 that is produced can either be chemically
separated from the parent thorium fuel and the decay product U-233 then
recycled into new fuel, or the U-233 may be usable ‘in-situ’ in the same fuel
form, especially in molten salt reactors (MSRs).
Thorium
fuels therefore need a fissile material as a ‘driver’ so that a chain reaction
(and thus supply of surplus neutrons) can be maintained. The only fissile
driver options are U-233, U-235 or Pu-239. (None of these is easy to supply)
It is
possible – but quite difficult – to design thorium fuels that produce more
U-233 in thermal reactors than the fissile material they consume (this is
referred to as having a fissile conversion ratio of more than 1.0 and is also
called breeding). Thermal breeding with thorium requires that the neutron economy
in the reactor has to be very good (ie, there must be low neutron loss through
escape or parasitic absorption). The possibility to breed fissile material in
slow neutron systems is a unique feature for thorium-based fuels and is not
possible with uranium fuels.
Another
distinct option for using thorium is as a ‘fertile matrix’ for fuels containing
plutonium that serves as the fissile driver while being consumed (and even
other transuranic elements like americium). Mixed thorium-plutonium oxide
(Th-Pu MOX) fuel is an analog of current uranium-MOX fuel, but no new plutonium
is produced from the thorium component, unlike for uranium fuels in U-Pu MOX
fuel, and so the level of net consumption of plutonium is high. Production of
all actinides is lower than with conventional fuel, and negative reactivity
coefficient is enhanced compared with U-Pu MOX fuel.
In fresh
thorium fuel, all of the fissions (thus power and neutrons) derive from the
driver component. As the fuel operates the U-233 content gradually increases
and it contributes more and more to the power output of the fuel. The ultimate
energy output from U-233 (and hence indirectly thorium) depends on numerous
fuel design parameters, including: fuel burn-up attained, fuel arrangement,
neutron energy spectrum and neutron flux (affecting the intermediate product
protactinium-233, which is a neutron absorber). The fission of a U-233 nucleus
releases about the same amount of energy (200 MeV) as that of U-235.
An
important principle in the design of thorium fuel systems is that of
heterogeneous fuel arrangement in which a high fissile (and therefore higher
power) fuel zone called the seed region is physically separated from the
fertile (low or zero power) thorium part of the fuel – often called the
blanket. Such an arrangement is far better for supplying surplus neutrons to
thorium nuclei so they can convert to fissile U-233, in fact all thermal
breeding fuel designs are heterogeneous. This principle applies to all the
thorium-capable reactor systems.
Th-232 is
fissionable with fast neutrons of over 1 MeV energy. It could therefore be used
in fast molten salt and other Gen IV reactors with uranium or plutonium fuel to
initiate fission. However, Th-232 fast fissions only one tenth as well as
U-238, so there is no particular reason for using thorium in fast reactors,
given the huge amount of depleted uranium awaiting use.
In Norway Europe are initiating
feasibility studies to investigate the use of Th-Add fuel in commercial
reactors. This fuel is promoted as a means to improve power profiles within
commercial reactors.
Reactors
able to use thorium
There are
seven types of reactor into which thorium can be introduced as a nuclear fuel.
The first five of these have all entered into operational service at some
point. The last two are still conceptual:
Heavy Water
Reactors (PHWRs): These are well suited for thorium fuels due to their
combination of: (i) excellent neutron economy (their low parasitic neutron absorption
means more neutrons can be absorbed by thorium to produce useful U-233), (ii)
slightly faster average neutron energy which favours conversion to U-233, (iii)
flexible on-line refueling capability. Furthermore, heavy water reactors
(especially CANDU) are well established and widely-deployed commercial
technology for which there is extensive licensing experience.
There is
potential application to Enhanced Candu 6 (EC6) and ACR-1000 reactors fueled
with 5% plutonium (reactor grade) plus thorium. In the closed fuel cycle, the
driver fuel required for starting off is progressively replaced with recycled
U-233, so that on reaching equilibrium 80% of the energy comes from thorium.
Fissile drive fuel could be LEU, plutonium, or recycled uranium from LWR. Fleets
of PHWRs with near-self-sufficient equilibrium thorium fuel cycles could be
supported by a few fast breeder reactors to provide plutonium.
High-Temperature
Gas-Cooled Reactors (HTRs): These are well suited for thorium-based fuels in
the form of robust ‘TRISO’ coated particles of thorium mixed with plutonium or
enriched uranium, coated with pyrolytic carbon and silicon carbide layers which
retain fission gases. The fuel particles are embedded in a graphite matrix that
is very stable at high temperatures. Such fuels can be irradiated for very long
periods and thus deeply burn their original fissile charge. Thorium fuels can
be designed for both ‘pebble bed’ and ‘prismatic’ types of HTR reactors.
Boiling
(Light) Water Reactors (BWRs): BWR fuel assemblies can be flexibly designed in
terms of rods with varying compositions (fissile content), and structural
features enabling the fuel to experience more or less moderation (eg,
half-length fuel rods). This design flexibility is very good for being able to
come up with suitable heterogeneous arrangements and create well-optimised
thorium fuels. So it is possible, for example, to design thorium-plutonium BWR
fuels that are tailored for ‘burning’ surplus plutonium. And importantly, BWRs
are a well-understood and licensed reactor type.
Pressurised
(Light) Water Reactors (PWRs): Viable thorium fuels can be designed for a PWR,
though with less flexibility than for BWRs. Fuel needs to be in heterogeneous
arrangements in order to achieve satisfactory fuel burn-up. It is not possible
to design viable thorium-based PWR fuels that convert significant amounts of
U-233. Even though PWRs are not the perfect reactor in which to use thorium,
they are the industry workhorse and there is a lot of PWR licensing experience.
They are a viable early-entry thorium platform.
Fast
Neutron Reactors (FNRs): Thorium can serve as a fuel component for reactors
operating with a fast neutron spectrum – in which a wider range of heavy
nuclides are fissionable and may potentially drive a thorium fuel. There is,
however, no relative advantage in using thorium instead of depleted uranium
(DU) as a fertile fuel matrix in these reactor systems due to a higher
fast-fission rate for U-238 and the fission contribution from residual U-235 in
this material. Also, there is a huge amount of surplus DU available for use
when more FNRs are commercially available, so thorium has little or no
competitive edge in these systems.
Molten Salt
Reactors (MSRs): These reactors are still at the design stage but are likely to
be very well suited for using thorium as a fuel. The unique fluid fuel can
incorporate thorium and uranium (U-233 and/or U-235) fluorides as part of a
salt mixture that melts in the range 400-700ºC, and this liquid serves as both
heat transfer fluid and the matrix for the fissioning fuel. The fluid
circulates through a core region and then through a chemical processing circuit
that removes various fission products (poisons) and/or the valuable U-233. The
level of moderation is given by the amount of graphite built into the core.
Certain MSR designsc will be designed specifically for thorium fuels to produce
useful amounts of U-233.
Accelerator
Driven Reactors (ADS): The sub-critical ADS system is an unconventional nuclear
fission energy concept that is potentially ‘thorium capable’. Spallation
neutrons are producedd when high-energy protons from an accelerator strike a
heavy target like lead. These neutrons are directed at a region containing a
thorium fuel, eg, Th-plutonium which reacts to produce heat as in a
conventional reactor. The system remains subcritical ie, unable to sustain a
chain reaction without the proton beam. Difficulties lie with the reliability
of high-energy accelerators and also with economics due to their high power
consumption. (See also information page on Accelerator-Driven Nuclear Energy.)
A key
finding from thorium fuel studies to date is that it is not economically viable
to use low-enriched uranium (LEU – with a U-235 content of up to 20%) as a
fissile driver with thorium fuels, unless the fuel burn-up can be taken to very
high levels – well beyond those currently attainable in LWRs with zirconium
cladding.
With regard
to proliferation significance, thorium-based power reactor fuels would be a
poor source for fissile material usable in the illicit manufacture of an
explosive device. U-233 contained in spent thorium fuel contains U-232 which
decays to produce very radioactive daughter nuclides and these create a strong
gamma radiation field. This confers proliferation resistance by creating
significant handling problems and by greatly boosting the detectability
(traceability) and ability to safeguard this material.
Prior
thorium-fuelled electricity generation
There have
been several significant demonstrations of the use of thorium-based fuels to
generate electricity in several reactor types. Many of these early trials were
able to use high-enriched uranium (HEU) as the fissile ‘driver’ component, and
this would not be considered today.
The 300 MWe
Thorium High Temperature Reactor (THTR) at Hamm-Uentrop in Germany operated
with thorium-HEU fuel between 1983 and 1989, when it was shut down due to
technical problems. Over half of its 674,000 pebbles contained Th-HEU fuel
particles (the rest comprised graphite moderator and some neutron absorbers).
These were continuously moved through the reactor as it operated, and on
average each fuel pebble passed six times through the core.
The 40 MWe
Peach Bottom HTR in the USA was a demonstration thorium-fuelled reactor that
ran from 1967-74.2 It used a thorium-HEU fuel in the form of microspheres of
mixed thorium-uranium carbide coated with pyrolytic carbon. These were embedded
in annular graphite segments (not pebbles). This reactor produced 33 billion
kWh over 1349 equivalent full-power days with a capacity factor of 74%.
The 330 MWe
Fort St Vrain HTR in Colorado, USA, was a larger-scale commercial successor to
the Peach Bottom reactor and ran from 1976-89. It also used thorium-HEU fuel in
the form of microspheres of mixed thorium-uranium carbide coated with silicon
oxide and pyrolytic carbon to retain fission products. These were embedded in
graphite ‘compacts’ that were arranged in hexagonal columns ('prisms'). Almost
25 tonnes of thorium was used in fuel for the reactor, much of which attained a
burn-up of about 170 GWd/t.
A unique
thorium-fuelled Light Water Breeder Reactor operated from 1977 to 1982 at
Shippingport in the USA3 – it used uranium-233 as the fissile driver in special
fuel assemblies that had movable ‘seed’ regions which allowed the level of
neutron moderation to be gradually increased as the fuel agede. The reactor
core was housed in a reconfigured early PWR. It operated with a power output of
60 MWe (236 MWt) and an availability factor of 86% producing over 2.1 billion
kWh. Post-operation inspections revealed that 1.39% more fissile fuel was
present at the end of core life, proving that breeding had occurred. A 2007 NRC
report quotes breeding ratio of 1.01.
Indian
heavy water reactors (PHWRs) have for a long time used thorium-bearing fuel
bundles for power flattening in some fuel channels – especially in initial
cores when special reactivity control measures are needed.
Thorium
energy R&D – past & present
Research
into the use of thorium as a nuclear fuel has been taking place for over 40
years, though with much less intensity than that for uranium or
uranium-plutonium fuels. Basic development work has been conducted in Germany,
India, Canada, Japan, China, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Russia, Brazil, the
UK & the USA. Test irradiations have been conducted on a number of
different thorium-based fuel forms.
Noteworthy
studies and experiments involving thorium fuel include:
Heavy water
reactors: Thorium-based fuels for the ‘Candu’ PHWR system have been designed
and tested in Canada at AECL's Chalk River Laboratories for more than 50 years,
including the irradiation of ThO2-based fuels to burn-ups to 47 GWd/t. Dozens
of test irradiations have been performed on fuels including: mixed ThO2-UO2,
(both LEU and HEU), and mixed ThO2-PuO2, (both reactor- and weapons-grade). The
NRX, NRU and WR-1 reactors were used, NRU most recently. R&D into thorium
fuel use in CANDU reactors continues to be pursued by Canadian and Chinese
groups as part of joint studies looking at a wide range of fuel cycle options
involving China's Qinshan Phase III PHWR units. Eight ThO2-based fuel pins have
been successfully irradiated in the middle of a LEU Candu fuel bundle with
low-enriched uranium. The fuels have performed well in terms of their material
properties.
Closed
thorium fuel cycles have been designed4 in which PHWRs play a key role due to
their fuelling flexibility: thoria-based HWR fuels can incorporate recycled
U-233, residual plutonium and uranium from used LWR fuel, and also minor
actinide components in waste-reduction strategies. In the closed cycle, the
driver fuel required for starting off is progressively replaced with recycled
U-233, so that an ever-increasing energy share in the fuel comes from the
thorium component. AECL has a Thoria Roadmap R&D project.
In July
2009 a second phase agreement was signed among AECL, the Third Qinshan Nuclear
Power Company (TQNPC), China North Nuclear Fuel Corporation and the Nuclear
Power Institute of China to jointly develop and demonstrate the use of thorium
fuel and to study the commercial and technical feasibility of its full-scale
use in Candu units such as at Qinshan. An expert panel appointed by CNNC unanimously
recommended that China consider building two new Candu units to take advantage
of the design's unique capabilities in utilizing alternative fuels. It
confirmed that thorium use in the Enhanced Candu 6 reactor design is
“technically practical and feasible”, and cited the design’s “enhanced safety
and good economics” as reasons it could be deployed in China in the near term.
India’s
nuclear developers have designed an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR)
specifically as a means for ‘burning’ thorium – this will be the final phase of
their three-phase nuclear energy infrastructure plan (see below). The reactor
will operate with a power of 300 MWe using thorium-plutonium or thorium-U-233
seed fuel in mixed oxide form. It is heavy water moderated (& light water
cooled) and will eventually be capable of self-sustaining U-233 production. In
each assembly 30 of the fuel pins will be Th-U-233 oxide, arranged in
concentric rings. About 75% of the power will come from the thorium.
Construction of the pilot AHWR is envisaged in the 12th plan period to 2017,
for operation about 2022.
For export,
India has also designed an AHWR300-LEU which uses low-enriched uranium as well
thorium in fuel, dispensing with plutonium input. About 39% of the power will
come from thorium (via in situ conversion to U-233, cf two-thirds in AHWR), and
burn-up will be 64 GWd/t. While closed fuel cycle is possible, this is not
required or envisaged, and the used fuel, with about 8% fissile isotopes can be
used in light water reactors. Further detail in the India paper.
High-temperature
gas-cooled reactors: Thorium fuel was used in HTRs prior to the successful
demonstration reactors described above. The UK operated the 20 MWth Dragon HTR
from 1964 to 1973 for 741 full power days. Dragon was run as an OECD/Euratom
cooperation project, involving Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland
in addition to the UK. This reactor used thorium-HEU fuel elements in a 'breed
and feed' mode in which the U-233 formed during operation replaced the consumption
of U-235 at about the same rate. The fuel comprised small particles of uranium
oxide (1 mm diameter) coated with silicon carbide and pyrolytic carbon which
proved capable of maintaining a high degree of fission product containment at
high temperatures and for high burn-ups. The particles were consolidated into
45mm long elements, which could be left in the reactor for about six years.
Germany
operated the Atom Versuchs Reaktor (AVR) at Jülich for over 750 weeks between
1967 and 1988. This was a small pebble bed reactor that operated at 15 MWe,
mainly with thorium-HEU fuel. About 1360 kg of thorium was used in some 100,000
pebbles. Burn-ups of 150 GWd/t were achieved.
Pebble bed
reactor development builds on German work with the AVR and THTR and is under
development in China (HTR-10, and HTR-PM).
Light water
reactors: The feasibility of using thorium fuels in a PWR was studied in
considerable detail during a collaborative project between Germany and Brazil
in the 1980s5. The vision was to design fuel strategies that used materials
effectively – recycling of plutonium and U-233 was seen to be logical. The
study showed that appreciable conversion to U-233 could be obtained with
various thorium fuels, and that useful uranium savings could be achieved. The program
terminated in 1988 for non-technical reasons. It did not reach its later stages
which would have involved trial irradiations of thorium-plutonium fuels in the
Angra-1 PWR in Brazil, although preliminary Th-fuel irradiation experiments
were performed in Germany. Most findings from this study remain relevant today.
Thorium-plutonium
oxide (Th-MOX) fuels for LWRs are being developed by Norwegian proponents with
a view that these are the most readily achievable option for tapping energy
from thorium. This is because such fuel is usable in existing reactors (with
minimal modification) using existing uranium-MOX technology and licensing
experience.
A
thorium-MOX fuel irradiation experiment is underway in the Halden research
reactor in Norway from 2013. The test fuel is in the form of pellets composed
of a dense thorium oxide ceramic matrix containing about 10% of plutonium oxide
as the 'fissile driver'. Th-MOX fuel promises higher safety margins than U-MOX
due to higher thermal conductivity and melting point, and it produces U-233 as
it operates rather than further plutonium (therefore providing a new option for
reducing civil and military plutonium stocks). The irradiation test will run
for around five years, after which the fuel will be studied to quantify its
operational performance and gather data to support the safety case for its
eventual use in commercial reactors.
Various
groups are evaluating the option of using thorium fuels in in an advanced
reduced-moderation BWR (RBWR). This reactor platform, designed by Hitachi Ltd
and JAEA, should be well suited for achieving high U-233 conversion factors
from thorium due to its epithermal neutron spectrum. High levels of actinide
destruction may also be achieved in carefully designed thorium fuels in these
conditions. The RBWR is based on the ABWR architecture but has a shorter,
flatter pancake-shaped core and a tight hexagonal fuel lattice to ensure
sufficient fast neutron leakage and a negative void reactivity coefficient.
The
so-called Radkowsky Thorium Reactor design is based on a heterogeneous ‘seed
& blanket’ thorium fuel concept, tailored for Russian-type LWRs (VVERs)6.
Enriched uranium (20% U-235) or plutonium is used in a seed region at the
centre of a fuel assembly, with this fuel being in a unique metallic form. The
central seed portion is demountable from the blanket material which remains in
the reactor for nine yearsf, but the centre seed portion is burned for only
three years (as in a normal VVER). Design of the seed fuel rods in the centre
portion draws on experience of Russian naval reactors.
The
European Framework Program has supported a number of relevant research
activities into thorium fuel use in LWRs. Three distinct trial irradiations
have been performed on thorium-plutonium fuels, including a test pin loaded in
the Obrigheim PWR over 2002-06 during which it achieved about 38 GWd/t burnup.
A small
amount of thorium-plutonium fuel was irradiated in the 60 MWe Lingen BWR in
Germany in the early 1970s. The fuel contained 2.6 % of high fissile-grade
plutonium (86% Pu-239) and the fuel achieved about 20 GWd/t burnup. The
experiment was not representative of commercial fuel, however the experiment
allowed for fundamental data collection and benchmarking of codes for this fuel
material.
Molten salt
reactors: In the 1960s the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA) designed and
built a demonstration MSR using U-233 as the main fissile driver in its second
campaign. The reactor ran over 1965-69 at powers up to 7.4 MWt. The
lithium-beryllium salt worked at 600-700ºC and ambient pressure. The R&D
program demonstrated the feasibility of this system and highlighted some unique
corrosion and safety issues that would need to be addressed if constructing a
larger pilot MSR.
There is
significant renewed interest in developing thorium-fuelled MSRs. Projects are
(or have recently been) underway in China, Japan, Russia, France and the USA.
It is notable that the MSR is one of the six ‘Generation IV’ reactor designs
selected as worthy of further development (see information page on Generation
IV Nuclear Reactors).
The
thorium-fuelled MSR variant is sometimes referred to as the Liquid Fluoride
Thorium Reactor (LFTR), utilizing U-233 which has been bred in a liquid thorium
salt blanket.g
Safety is
achieved with a freeze plug which if power is cut allows the fuel to drain into
subcritical geometry in a catch basin. There is also a negative temperature
coefficient of reactivity due to expansion of the fuel.
The China
Academy of Sciences in January 2011 launched an R&D program on LFTR, known
there as the thorium-breeding molten-salt reactor (Th-MSR or TMSR), and claimed
to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full
intellectual property rights on the technology. The TMSR Research Centre has a
5 MWe MSR prototype under construction at Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics
(SINAP, under the Academy) originally with 2015 target for operation, but now
expected in 2020.
SINAP has
two streams of MSR development – solid fuel (TRISO in pebbles or prisms/
blocks) with once-through fuel cycle, and liquid fuel (dissolved in FLiBe
coolant) with reprocessing and recycle. A third stream of fast reactors to
consume actinides from LWRs is planned.
The TMSR-SF
stream has only partial utilization of thorium, relying on some breeding as
with U-238, and needing fissile uranium input as well. SINAP aims at a 2 MW
pilot plant initially, and a 100 MWt demonstration pebble bed plant with open
fuel cycle by about 2025. TRISO particles will be with both low-enriched
uranium and thorium, separately.
The TMSR-LF
stream claims full closed Th-U fuel cycle with breeding of U-233 and much
better sustainability but greater technical difficulty. SINAP aims for a 10 MWt
pilot plant by 2025 and a 100 MWt demonstration plant by 2035.
A TMSFR-LF
fast reactor optimized for burning minor actinides is to follow.
SINAP sees
molten salt fuel being superior to the TRISO fuel in effectively unlimited
burn-up, less waste, and lower fabricating cost, but achieving lower
temperatures (600°C+) than the TRISO fuel reactors (1200°C+). Near-term goals
include preparing nuclear-grade ThF4 and ThO2 and testing them in a MSR. The US
Department of Energy (especially Oak Ridge NL) is collaborating with the
Academy on the program, which had a start-up budget of $350 million.
However,
the primary reason that American researchers and the China Academy of Sciences/
SINAP are working on solid fuel, salt-cooled reactor technology is that it is a
realistic first step. The technical difficulty of using molten salts is significantly
lower when they do not have the very high activity levels associated with them
bearing the dissolved fuels and wastes. The experience gained with component
design, operation, and maintenance with clean salts makes it much easier then
to move on and consider the use of liquid fuels, while gaining several key
advantages from the ability to operate reactors at low pressure and deliver
higher temperatures.
Accelerator-driven
reactors: A number of groups have investigated how a thorium-fuelled accelerator-driven
reactor (ADS) may work and appear. Perhaps most notable is the ‘ADTR’ design
patented by a UK group. This reactor operates very close to criticality and
therefore requires a relatively small proton beam to drive the spallation
neutron source. Earlier proposals for ADS reactors required high-energy and
high-current proton beams which are energy-intensive to produce, and for which
operational reliability is a problem.
Research
reactor ‘Kamini’: India has been operating a low-power U-233 fuelled reactor at
Kalpakkam since 1996 – this is a 30 kWth experimental facility using U-233 in
aluminium plates (a typical fuel-form for research reactors). Kamini is water
cooled with a beryllia neutron reflector. The total mass of U-233 in the core
is around 600 grams. It is noteworthy for being the only U-233 fuelled reactor
in the world, though it does not in itself directly support thorium fuel
R&D. The reactor is adjacent to the 40 MWt Fast Breeder Test Reactor in
which ThO2 is irradiated, producing the U-233 for Kamini.
Aqueous
homogeneous reactor: An aqueous homogenous suspension reactor operated over
1974-77 in the Netherlands at 1 MWth using thorium plus HEU oxide pellets. The
thorium-HEU fuel was circulated in solution with continuous reprocessing
outside the core to remove fission products, resulting in a high conversion
rate to U-233.
Developing
a thorium-based fuel cycle
Thorium
fuel cycles offer attractive features, including lower levels of waste
generation, less transuranic elements in that waste, and providing a
diversification option for nuclear fuel supply. Also, the use of thorium in
most reactor types leads to extra safety margins. Despite these merits, the
commercialization of thorium fuels faces some significant hurdles in terms of
building an economic case to undertake the necessary development work.
A great
deal of testing, analysis and licensing and qualification work is required
before any thorium fuel can enter into service. This is expensive and will not
eventuate without a clear business case and government support. Also, uranium
is abundant and cheap and forms only a small part of the cost of nuclear
electricity generation, so there are no real incentives for investment in a new
fuel type that may save uranium resources.
Other
impediments to the development of thorium fuel cycle are the higher cost of
fuel fabrication and the cost of reprocessing to provide the fissile plutonium
driver material. The high cost of fuel fabrication (for solid fuel) is due
partly to the high level of radioactivity that builds up in U-233 chemically
separated from the irradiated thorium fuel. Separated U-233 is always
contaminated with traces of U-232 which decays (with a 69-year half-life) to
daughter nuclides such as thallium-208 that are high-energy gamma emitters.
Although this confers proliferation resistance to the fuel cycle by making
U-233 hard to handle and easy to detect, it results in increased costs. There
are similar problems in recycling thorium itself due to highly radioactive
Th-228 (an alpha emitter with two-year half life) present. Some of these
problems are overcome in the LFTR or other molten salt reactor and fuel cycle
designs, rather than solid fuel.
Particularly
in a molten salt reactor, the equilibrium fuel cycle is expected to have
relatively low radiotoxicity, being fission products only plus short-lived
Pa-233, without transuranics. These are continually removed in on-line
reprocessing, though this is more complex than for the uranium-plutonium fuel
cycle.
Nevertheless,
the thorium fuel cycle offers energy security benefits in the long-term – due
to its potential for being a self-sustaining fuel without the need for fast
neutron reactors. It is therefore an important and potentially viable
technology that seems able to contribute to building credible, long-term
nuclear energy scenarios.
India's
plans for thorium cycle
With huge
resources of easily-accessible thorium and relatively little uranium, India has
made utilization of thorium for large-scale energy production a major goal in
its nuclear power programme, utilising a three-stage concept:
Pressurised
heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and light water reactors fuelled by natural
uranium producing plutonium that is separated for use in fuels in its fast
reactors and indigenous advanced heavy water reactors.
Fast
breeder reactors (FBRs) will use plutonium-based fuel to extend their plutonium
inventory. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so
that further plutonium (particularly Pu-239) is produced as well as U-233.
Advanced
heavy water reactors (AHWRs) will burn thorium-plutonium fuels in such a manner
that breeds U-233 which can eventually be used as a self-sustaining fissile
driver for a fleet of breeding AHWRs.
In all of
these stages, used fuel needs to be reprocessed to recover fissile materials
for recycling.
India is
focusing and prioritizing the construction and commissioning of its fleet of
500 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactors in which it will breed the required
plutonium which is the key to unlocking the energy potential of thorium in its
advanced heavy water reactors. This will take another 15-20 years, and so it
will still be some time before India is using thorium energy to any extent. The
500 MWe prototype FBR under construction in Kalpakkam is expected to start up
in 2014.
In 2009,
despite the relaxation of trade restrictions on uranium, India reaffirmed its
intention to proceed with developing the thorium cycle.
Weapons and
non-proliferation
The thorium
fuel cycle is sometimes promoted as having excellent non-proliferation
credentials. This is true, but some history and physics bears noting.
The USA
produced about 2 tonnes of U-233 from thorium during the ‘Cold War’, at various
levels of chemical and isotopic purity, in plutonium production reactors. It is
possible to use U-233 in a nuclear weapon, and in 1955 the USA detonated a
device with a plutonium-U-233 composite pit, in Operation Teapot. The explosive
yield was less than anticipated, at 22 kilotons. In 1998 India detonated a very
small device based on U-233 called Shakti V. However, the production of U-233
inevitably also yields U-232 which is a strong gamma-emitter, as are some decay
products such as thallium-208 ('thorium C'), making the material extremely
difficult to handle and also easy to detect.
U-233
classified by IAEA in same category as high enriched uranium (HEU), with a
significant quantity in terms of safeguards defined as 8 kg, compared with 32
kg for HEU.
Further
Information
Notes
a. Neutron
absorption by Th-232 produces Th-233 which beta-decays (with a half-life of
about 22 minutes) to protactinium-233 (Pa-233) – and this decays to U-233 by
further beta decay (with a half-life of 27 days). Some of the bred-in U-233 is
converted to U-234 by further neutron absorption. U-234 is an unwanted
parasitic neutron absorber. It converts to fissile U-235 (the naturally
occuring fissile isotope of uranium) and this somewhat compensates for this
neutronic penalty. In fuel cycles involving the multi-recycle of thorium-U-233
fuels, the build up of U-234 can be appreciable. [Back]
b. A U-233
nucleus yields more neutrons, on average, when it fissions (splits) than either
a uranium-235 or plutonium-239 nucleus. In other words, for every thermal
neutron absorbed in a U-233 fuel there are a greater number of neutrons produced
and released into the surrounding fuel. This gives better neutron economy in
the reactor system.. [Back]
c. MSRs
using thorium will likely have a distinct ‘blanket’ circuit which is optimised
for producing U-233 from dissolved thorium. Neutron moderation is tailored by
the amount of graphite in the core (aiming for an epithermal spectrum). This
uranium can be selectively removed as uranium hexafluoride (UF6) by bubbling
fluorine gas through the salt. After conversion it can be directed to the core
as fissile fuel. [Back]
d.
Spallation is the process where nucleons are ejected from a heavy nucleus being
hit by a high energy particle. In this case, a high-enery proton beam directed
at a heavy target expels a number of spallation particles, including neutrons.
[Back]
e. The core
of the Shippingport demonstration LWBR consisted of an array of seed and
blanket modules surrounded by an outer reflector region. In the seed and
blanket regions, the fuel pellets contained a mixture of thorium-232 oxide
(ThO2) and uranium oxide (UO2) that was over 98% enriched in U-233. The
proportion of UO2 was around 5-6% in the seed region, and about 1.5-3% in the
blanket region. The reflector region contained only thorium oxide at the
beginning of the core life. [Back]
f. Blanket
fuel is designed to reach 100 GWd/t burn-up. Together, the seed and blanket
have the same geometry as a normal VVER-100 fuel assembly (331 rods in a
hexagonal array 235 mm wide). [Back]
g. The
molten salt in the core circuit consists of lithium, beryllium and fissile
U-233 fluorides (FLiBe with uranium). It operates at some 700°C and circulates
at low pressure within a graphite structure that serves as a moderator and
neutron reflector. Most fission products dissolve or suspend in the salt and
some of these are removed progressively in an adjacent on-line radiochemical
processing unit. Actinides are less-readily formed than in fuel with atomic
mass greater than 235. The blanket circuit contains a significant amount of
thorium tetrafluoride in the molten Li-Be fluoride salt. Newly-formed U-233
forms soluble uranium tetrafluoride (UF4), which is converted to gaseous
uranium hexafluoride (UF6) by bubbling fluorine gas through the salt (which
does not chemically affect the less-reactive thorium tetrafluoride). The
volatile uranium hexafluoride is captured, reduced back to soluble UF4 by
hydrogen gas, and finally is directed to the core to serve as fissile fuel.
Protactinium – a neutron absorber – is not a major problem in the blanket salt.
[Back]
References
1. Data
taken from Uranium 2014: Resources, Production and Demand, OECD Nuclear Energy
Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency. [Back]
2. 2. K.P.
Steward, “Final Summary Report on the Peach Bottom End-of-Life Program”,
General Atomics Report GA-A14404, (1978) [Back]
3. (i) W.J.
Babyak, L.B. Freeman, H.F. Raab, “LWBR: A successful demonstration completed”
Nuclear News, Sept 1988, pp114-116 (1988), (ii) J.C. Clayton, “The Shippingport
Pressurized Water Reactor and Light Water Breeder Reactor” Westinghouse Bettis
Atomic Power Laboratory WAPD-T-3007 (October 1993). [Back]
4. (i) S.
Şahin, etal, “CANDU Reactor as Minor Actinide / Thorium Burner with Uniform
Power Density in the Fuel Bundle” Ann.Nuc.Energy. 35, 690-703 (2008), (ii) J.
Yu, K, Wang, R. Sollychin, etal, “Thorium Fuel Cycle of a Thorium-Based
Advanced Nuclear Energy System” Prog.Nucl.Energy. 45, 71-84 (2004) [Back]
5. “German
Brazilian Program of Research and Development on Thorium Utilization in PWRs”,
Final Report, Kernforschungsanlage Jülich, 1988. [Back]
6. A.
Galperin, A. Radkowsky and M. Todosow, A Competitive Thorium Fuel Cycle for
Pressurized Water Reactors of Current Technology, Proceedings of three
International Atomic Energy Agency meetings held in Vienna in 1997, 1998 and
1999, IAEA TECDOC 1319: Thorium fuel utilization: Options and trends,
IAEA-TECDOC-1319. [Back]
General
sources
Thorium
resources
Thorium, in
Australian Atlas of Minerals Resources, Mines & Processing Centres
(www.australianminesatlas.gov.au), Geoscience Australia
Thorium:
occurrences, geological deposits and resources, by F.H.Barthel &
H.Tulsidas, URAM 2014 conference, IAEA. This presentation is based on a
manuscript: World Thorium Occurrences, Resources and Deposits to be published
by IAEA in 2014
Thorium
fuel cycle
Thorium
based fuel options for the generation of electricity: Developments in the
1990s, IAEA-TECDOC-1155, International Atomic Energy Agency, May 2000
Taesin
Chung, The role of thorium in nuclear energy, Uranium Industry Annual 1996,
Energy Information Administration, DOE/EIA-0478(96) p.ix-xvii (April 1997)
M.
Benedict, T H Pigford and H W Levi, Nuclear Chemical Engineering (2nd Ed.),
Chapter 6: Thorium, p.283-317, 1981, McGraw-Hill(ISBN: 0070045313)
Kazimi M.S.
2003, Thorium Fuel for Nuclear Energy, American Scientist (Sept-Oct 2003)
W.J.
Babyak, L.B. Freeman, H.F. Raab, “LWBR: A successful demonstration completed”
Nuclear News, Sept 1988, pp114-116 (1988)
12th Indian
Nuclear Society Annual Conference 2001 conference proceedings, vol 2 (lead
paper)
Several
papers and articles related to the Radkowsky thorium fuel concept are available
on the Lightbridge (formerly Thorium Power) website (www.ltbridge.com)
Robert
Hargraves and Ralph Moir, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, American Scientist,
Vol. 98, No. 4, P. 304 (July-August 2010)
Thor Energy
website
Ho M.K.M.,
Yeoh G.H., & Braoudakis G., 2013, Molten Salt Reactors, in Materials and
processes for energy: communicating current research and technological
developments, ed A.Mendez-Vilas, Formatex Research Centre
Mathers, D,
NNL, The Thorium Fuel Cycle, ThEC2013 presentation
Xu, Hongjie
et al, SINAP, Thorium Energy R&D in China, ThEC2013 presentation
Vijayan,
I.V. et al, BARC, Overview of the Thorium Program in India, ThEC2013
presentation
Herring,
J.S. et al, 2004, Thorium-based Transmuter Fuels for Light Water Reactors, INL,
Nuclear Technology 147, July 2004
Price,
M.S.T., 2012, The Dragon Project origins, achievements and legacies, Nuclear
Engineering and Design 251, 60-68
Related
information pages
Accelerator-Driven
Nuclear Energy
Generation
IV Nuclear Reactors
Nuclear
Power in India
China
Nuclear Fuel Cycle, R&D section
facebooktwitterLinkedin
Icongoogle +youtubePinterestFlickriTunes
Gallery |
eShop | Reuse of WNA content | Contact us
© 2015
World Nuclear Association, registered in England and Wales, number 01215741.
Registered
office: Tower House, 10 Southampton Street
What happened to the Rs 60 lakh crore thorium scam?Jaideep PrabhuMonday, 28 April 2014 - 5:25pm IST | Agency: dna
A few years
ago, a story appeared in the Indian press that a massive scam involving the
illegal mining and covert export of thorium was taking place in the southern
Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Then, two things happened: one, the story died out
quickly without anyone investigating it further (but repeating the allegations
over and over again), and two, many just assumed it was true. Given the opacity
of the Indian state, particularly in matters involving nuclear materials, there
is a tendency for suspicions to become allegations and allegations to become
guilty verdicts. In an era of scams, government denials made little difference
to the public discourse. In
a scam-studded decade of Congress rule, the public has reached scam fatigue and
numbers as stratospheric as Rs 60 lakh crores, the amount the thorium scam is
supposed to have embezzled, are out of the comprehension of the common man. Yet
an alleged scam of such value, not just pecuniary but also strategic, is worth
reconsideration. The
beach sands of Tamil Nadu and Kerala are rich in several heavy minerals such as
ilmenite, rutile, leucoxene, garnet, sillimanite, zircon and monazite. These
minerals are used in several industries from steel and electronics to jewellery
and ceramics. Monazite, however, contains thorium, a nuclear fuel of much
interest. Discovered in the 1880s, monazite was the primary source of
commercial lanthanides. India
and Brazil
It was
illegal to mine these rare earth heavy minerals until recently; the only entity
allowed to do so was the government-owned Indian Rare Earths Limited (IERL). In
October 1998, the government of India
However,
the law also recognised that these minerals were mixed in the sand and
therefore stipulated that companies handling the beach sand have to get a
licence under the Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules from the Atomic
Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). The company would have to either dispose of the
monazite or store it on its premises as per regulations. The Indian government
denied private companies the permission to process the monazite for thorium or to
export the mineral: only IREL would be allowed to do that.
The thorium
scam allegations make four claims:
1.) A
private company is exporting thorium-rich sand illegally,
2.) Between
2002 and 2012, some 2.1 million tonnes of monazite has gone missing, which
amounts to approximately 235,000 tonnes of thorium,
3.) The
monazite has not been returned by the private company to the DAE after mining
for other minerals,
4.) Only a
gentleman’s agreement requires the private company to inform the government
about how much monazite they posses.
The
newspaper article makes no mention of the name of the company accused but the
Indian Bureau of Mines reveals the company that matches the description
provided – 96 of 111 garnet mining licenses and 44 licenses to mine ilmenite –
to be VV Mineral.
The first
claim is based on some circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that certain
people were denied access to the beaches where the sand mining was taking place
and to the warehouses where the monazite was stored. There could be two
plausible reasons for this. The first is that private corporations do not let
unauthorised people access their facilities, be it the beaches or the
warehouses, for reasons of safety and security. In fact, it may well be illegal
for companies to do so without appropriate government clearances.
A second
reason could be that the facilities are under the jurisdiction of the AERB and
only their authorisation can give visitors or inspectors access to premises
storing nuclear materials. To an outsider, the plethora of government agencies
that make up India
The second
accusation springs from a discrepancy between two reports by the Atomic
Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMDER) of the Department of
Atomic Energy (DAE). In a report read to the Lok Sabha in 2012, the AMDER
stated that there were 10.7 tonnes of monazite on India
There is
much reason for scepticism at these claims. Though India
is estimated to have the second largest deposits of thorium after Brazil (different surveys show different
results, but all agree India
Secondly,
the amount of thorium that has allegedly been exported – 235,000 tonnes – is
quite simply nonsensical. If India
had 100% of its present energy output, about 200 GW, supplied entirely by
thorium reactors, the amount alleged to have gone missing in the scam could
power India United
States India
Thorium
cannot be used to make nuclear weapons either, and so even lacks the value of
exotic contraband weaponry. Given the abundance of the mineral, it is also
impossible for anyone to try and corner the market on thorium in anticipation
of a surge in production of thorium reactors in the coming years. In
conjunction with minuscule global thorium use, it is difficult to fathom whence
the demand for such vast quantities of monazite comes.
The third
allegation that the private companies have not returned any of the monazite to
the government makes little sense either, for the law clearly stipulates that
the mining company may store the monazite on its premises in full compliance of
AERB regulations regarding the storage of prescribed substances. As of 2013,
five private firms have been licensed to secure monazite on their premises.
The final
accusation, that only a gentleman’s agreement exists between the companies and
the government in reporting the companies’ monazite holdings, is not entirely
out of the realm of impossibility in a country like India, famous for its
bureaucratic lapses and inefficiency. However, the high priority given to the
country’s nuclear assets makes this unlikely and any lapse is a result of a
lackadaisical bureaucracy at most.
It is
astonishing that an allegation based on such flimsy, uncorroborated evidence
and numbers that bore no resemblance to reality received even the iota of
attention that it did. Perhaps the political environment of the times created a
favourable disposition towards believing any ill of the government and reversed
the country’s default position to an assumption of guilt rather than of
innocence.
There
remains, of course, the question about the missing 2.1 million tonnes of
monazite. Is it in fact missing? Are the DAE’s figures accurate? If it has not
been exported and is not missing, do the records show that amount in the
holdings of the mining companies? If not, why not? Unlike the allegations
against VV Mineral and the other four companies, these questions are merely
about paperwork and should be asked of the DAE now that attention has been
drawn to India
Nonetheless,
thorium holds great promise for India India ’s
thorium assets, it is time to dispel the dark cloud hanging over India
Scientists
say that by 2003, DAE, which comes under PM, was within four years of mastering
the 1 GW n-power plant technology.
MADHAV NALAPAT New Delhi
he then Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh followed an unwritten policy of severely downsizing both the
Fast Breeder Reactor (FBT) as well as the thorium-based technology programme,
thereby making India dependent on foreign countries for advanced nuclear
technology, key scientists claim on the condition of anonymity. The scientists
say that by 2003, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) — which comes directly
under the Prime Minister — was within four years of mastering the 1 Gigawatt
nuclear power plant technology now being supplied by China
to Pakistan
However, "from
2005 onwards, the PM turned his attention towards signing a nuclear deal, which
would make India one of the top three global markets for nuclear power
companies in the US and Europe rather than a competitor of companies based in
these locations" in the lucrative nuclear power technology market. At the
same time, "no serious effort was made to clear the legal and other
obstacles to mining extra quantities of uranium in Andhra Pradesh and the
Northeast".
Instead, the
(foreign-funded) NGOs behind the agitation against uranium mining "were
given privileged access, including in the Ministry of Environment".
According to them, "The attention given to the Fast Breeder Reactor and
Thorium programmes were reduced still further by 2008, when discussions began
with international companies about supply of reactors to India India China China is now on
the cusp of mastering the technology of 2 Gigawatt reactors, while India
Now that Narendra Modi is Prime Minister, the
scientists are hopeful of a return to the level of interest shown by Indira
Gandhi towards the indigenous nuclear programme, in place of Manmohan Singh's
policy of relying instead on foreign technology and manufacturers for developing
such energy sources. A scientist claimed that in case the Indian private sector
too partners the DAE, within the next five years, "India India ",
the watchword was "Export to India
Alarmingly,
the scientists warned that rare earths as well as thorium deposits were being
exported out of the country to unknown destinations, and named a clutch of
Tamil Nadu-based companies as being the worst offenders. In one such instance,
in 2007, a case got registered by the DAE against V.V. Minerals for quarrying
and exporting sands rich in precious minerals from Tirunelveli. The company,
together with Indian Port Terminals, Kilburn Chemicals and Transworld Garnet
(all based in Tamil Nadu), has also been accused of exporting restricted
minerals in the guise of sand mining in Tuticorin, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari.
Although reports of such mining multiplied, "the central authorities took
no cognizance". Finally, on 6 August 2013, the collector of Thoothukui
district warned in writing that certain companies had illegally quarried as
much as 239,712 MT of precious minerals from beaches in the state, only to get
transferred for his pains. As a consequence, precious minerals such as garnet,
rutile, ilmenite and monazite (which contains thorium) continue to get exported
as ordinary sand, without any effort by the authorities to prevent such a
denuding of India
A
scientist pointed out that in 2006, the Manmohan Singh government removed rare
minerals such as rutile, zircon, garnet and ilmenite from the Atomic Minerals
List, thereby giving the precious sand mafias operating in the country carte
blanche to take away such minerals for export to unknown destinations.
"This decision, which harmed the country's interests significantly, was
carried out by the Department of Atomic Energy under pressure from the Prime
Minister's Office", a scientist claimed. "Such a decision was in line
with others degrading domestic capacities for the benefit of foreign
entities", the scientist added.
It
may be mentioned that a single company, V.V. Minerals, controls over 15
kilometres of beach area in three districts of Tamil Nadu, while also having
control (through lease deeds) of several thousand acres of land rich in
precious minerals.
Monazite
is an important feedstock for thorium, cerium and lanthanum, and scientists say
that the casual manner in which its (thinly disguised) export was treated by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "has no parallel anywhere in the
world". An intelligence analyst claimed that key executives of companies
involved in illicit mining "frequented Bangkok
and Kuala Lumpur Pakistan nuclear establishment is building up a
stock of thorium for its own research, all of which comes from minerals
illegally exported from India
