Nuclear power in India

Nuclear power is one of the fastest growing power-generation industries in India. As of 2008, India has 17 nuclear power plants in operation generating 4,120 MW while 6 other are under construction and are expected to generate an additional 3,160 MW. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India plans to generate 20,000 MW of power by 2020. Currently, India stands 9th in the world in terms of number of nuclear power reactors.
India, being a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has been subjected to a defector nuclear embargo from members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) cartel. This has prevented India from obtaining commercial nuclear fuel, nuclear power plant components and services from the international market, thereby forcing India to develop its own fuel, components and services for nuclear power generation. The NSG embargo has had both negative and positive consequences for India's Nuclear Industry. On the one hand, the NSG regime has constrained India from freely importing nuclear fuel at the volume and cost levels it would like to support the country's goals of expanding its nuclear power generation capacity to at least 20,000 MW by 2020. Also, by precluding India from taking advantage of the economies of scale and safety innovations of the global nuclear industry, the NSG regime has driven up the capital and operating costs and damaged the achievable safety potential of Indian nuclear power plants. On the other hand, the NSG embargo has forced the Indian government and bureaucracy to support and actively fund the development of Indian nuclear technologies and industrial capacities in all key areas required to create and maintain a domestic nuclear industry. This has resulted in the creation of a large pool of nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians that have developed new and unique innovations in the areas of Fast Breeder Reactors, Thermal Breeder Reactors, the Thorium fuel cycle, nuclear fuel reprocessing and Tritium extraction & production. Ironically, had the NSG sanctions not been in place, it would have been far more cost effective for India to import foreign nuclear power plants and nuclear fuels than to fund the development of Indian nuclear power generation technology, the building of India's own nuclear reactors, and the development of domestic uranium mining, milling and refining capacity.
The Indian nuclear power industry is expected to undergo a significant expansion in the coming year’s thanks in part to the expected passing of The Indo-US nuclear deal. This agreement is expected to allow India to carry out trade of nuclear fuel and technologies with other countries and significantly enhance its power generation capacity. If the agreement goes through, India is expected to generate an additional 25,000 MW of nuclear power by 2020, bringing total estimated nuclear power generation to 45,000 MW.
India has already been using imported enriched uranium and is currently under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, but it has developed various aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle to support its reactors. Development of select technologies has been strongly affected by limited imports. Use of heavy water reactors has been particularly attractive for the nation because it allows Uranium to be burnt with little to no enrichment capabilities. India has also done a great amount of work in the development of a Thorium centered fuel cycle. While Uranium deposits in the nation are limited (see next paragraph) there are much greater reserves of Thorium and it could provide hundreds of times the energy with the same mass of fuel. The fact that Thorium can theoretically be utilized in heavy water reactors has tied the development of the two. A prototype reactor that would burn Uranium-Plutonium fuel while irradiating a Thorium blanket is under construction at the Madras/Kalpakkam Atomic Power Station.
Uranium used for the weapons program has been separate from the power program, using Uranium from indigenous reserves. This domestic reserve of 80,000 to 112,000 tons of uranium (approx 1% of global uranium reserves) is large enough to supply all of India's commercial and military reactors as well as supply all the needs of India's nuclear weapons arsenal. Currently, India's nuclear power reactors consume, at most, 478 metric tones of uranium per year. Even if India were quadruple its nuclear power output (and reactor base) to 20GWe by 2020, nuclear power generation would only consume 2000 metric tones of uranium per annum. Based on India's known commercially viable reserves of 80,000 to 112,000 tons of uranium, this represents a 40 to 50 years uranium supply for India's nuclear power reactors (note with reprocessing and breeder reactor technology, this supply could be stretched out many times over). Furthermore, the uranium requirements of India's Nuclear Arsenal are only a fifteenth (1/15) of that required for power generation (approx. 32 tones), meaning that India's domestic fissile material supply is more than enough to meet all needs for it strategic nuclear arsenal. Therefore, India has sufficient uranium resources to meet its strategic and power requirements for the foreseeable future.
Nuclear power plants
Currently, seventeen nuclear power reactors produce 4,120.00 MW (2.9% of total installed base).
Power station
Operator
State
Type
Units
Total capacity (MW)
Kaiga
NPCIL
Karnataka
PHWR
220 x 3
660
Kakrapar
NPCIL
Gujarat
PHWR
220 x 2
440
Kalpakkam
NPCIL
Tamil Nadu
PHWR
220 x 2
440
Narora
NPCIL
Uttar Pradesh
PHWR
220 x 2
440
Rawatbhata
NPCIL
Rajasthan
PHWR
100 x 1, 200 x 1, 220 x 2
740
Tarapur
NPCIL
Maharastra
BWR (PHWR)
160 x 2, 540 x 2
1400
Total
4120
The projects under construction are:
Power station
Operator
State
Type
Units
Total capacity (MW)
Kaiga
NPCIL
Karnataka
PHWR
220 x 1
220
Rawatbhata
NPCIL
Rajasthan
PHWR
220 x 2
440
Kudankulam
NPCIL
Tamil Nadu
VVER-1000
1000 x 2
2000
Kalpakkam
NPCIL
Tamil Nadu
500 x 1
500
Total
3160