Fast breeder reactor

Subject :Science and Technology

Context:

What is a breeder reactor?

A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes.
Breeder reactors achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to create more fissile fuel than they use, by irradiation of fertile material, such as uranium-238 or thorium-232, that is loaded into the reactor along with fissile fuel.
A fast breeder reactor (FBR) uses fast (i.e. unmoderated) neutrons to breed fissile plutonium and possibly higher transuranics from fertile uranium-238.
The fast spectrum is flexible enough that it can also breed fissile uranium-233 from thorium, if desired.

About the Prototype Fast Breeder reactor (PFBR):

The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is a 500 MWefast breeder nuclear reactor presently being constructed at the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) in Kalpakkam, India.
The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) is responsible for the design of this reactor.
The facility builds on the decades of experience gained from operating the lower-power Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR).
The Kalpakkam PFBR is designed to use uranium-238 to breed plutonium in a sodium-cooled fast reactor design.
The surplus plutonium (or uranium-233 for thorium reactors) from each fast reactor can be used to set up more such reactors and grow the nuclear capacity in tune with India’s needs for power.

India’s three-stage nuclear power program:

It was formulated by Homi Bhabha in the 1950s to secure the country’s long-term energy independence, through the use of uranium and thorium reserves found in the monazite sands of coastal regions of South India.
India has huge deposits of Thorium in the monazite sands. But it can’t be used at the present stage.
However, if we follow the three-stage plan, in future the Thorium can be used in producing Nuclear energy.

The first stage would see the creation of a fleet of ‘pressurised heavy water reactors’, which use scarce Uranium to produce some Plutonium.
The second stage would see the setting up of several ‘fast breeder reactors’ (FBRs).
- These FBRs would use a mixture of Plutonium and the reprocessed ‘spent Uranium from the first stage, to produce energy and more Plutonium (hence ‘breeder’), because the Uranium would transmute into Plutonium.
- Alongside, the reactors would convert some of the Thorium into Uranium-233, which can also be used to produce energy.
- After 3-4 decades of operation, the FBRs would have produced enough Plutonium for use in the ‘third stage’.
In the third stage, Thorium-based reactors would be established, and Uranium-233 would be used in specially-designed reactors to produce energy and convert more Thorium into Uranium-233—one can keep adding Thorium endlessly.
The PFBR is part of the three-stage nuclear power program.