India's oldest nuke reactors near Mumbai likely to shut down

Blame it on maintenance costs outpacing power tariffs.

According to a report from Bloomberg, India may shut two of its oldest reactors almost five decades after they went into operation as power tariffs aren’t keeping pace with maintenance costs, according to Sekhar Basu, secretary at the Department of Atomic Energy.

"The first two reactors at Tarapur, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Mumbai at India’s western coast, suffer frequent maintenance shutdowns that make them unprofitable, Basu said in a phone interview. They earn about 0.89 rupees (1 cent) for every kilowatt hour of electricity produced, which isn’t enough to sustain operations. Nuclear plants in India received an average tariff of 2.78 rupees per kilowatt hour in the year ended March 2015, according to the Department of Atomic Energy," Bloomberg said in its report.

View the full report here