Safe nuclear energy: India showed the way

Several reactors operating with thorium fuel were built in the 1970s. These reactors used a mixture of thorium and highly enriched uranium. By the end of the 1980s, they were closed down with plentiful availability of uranium. India is now perhaps the only country to have an operating reactor — Kamini, the mini reactor at Kalpakkam — using a form of uranium derived from thorium along with plutonium.

India is also the only country now with an ongoing programme to build a power-generating reactor — Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, AHWR — that will be fuelled with thorium and plutonium. The AHWR is designed to have many advanced safety features.

Rediff