Construction of India's first fast breeder reactor to be completed in Sept

India's first 500-MW prototype fast breeder reactor is likely to go critical early next year.

It is being set up at Kalpakkam.

According to Prabhat Kumar, project director, BHAVINI, the PFBR construction work will be over by September this year and testing of various systems would end by December 2012 or January 2013.

"There is no inordinate time lag between PFBR attaining criticality and it starting commercial production given the fact that it is a newly-designed reactor. With small core/fuel lot of tests on reactor physics would be done. Then by gradually increasing the generation engineering tests would be carried out," a nuclear scientist told IANS, preferring anonymity.

"A year of testing will be sufficient after reactor attained criticality," he remarked.

When the PFBR is commissioned, power can be produced at a lesser cost than electricity generated from conventional sources.

Fast reactors form a key in the India's three-stage nuclear power programme, which comprises pressurised heavy water reactors at the first stage, fast breeder reactors at second and thorium-based systems at the third stage. In 1985, India became the sixth country in the world to have such a technology.

The government has said in parliament that the PFBR is expected to begin commercial production in March 2015. Nuclear scientists though are of the view that commercial generation can happen even before that date.

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