India's nuclear energy mission finds its golden moment

India has achieved a rare feat that it sought for decades to boost its nuclear energy sector that operated under the dark shadows of international sanctions and a crippling shortage of domestic uranium reserves. Photo by Pixabay.

The year was 2008. The Indian economy had been growing at a steady pace for several years, clocking close to an annual growth of 9% at times. But the growing middle class and industrial output had also exasperated a growing worry - that the country was struggling to meet rising power demand with the peak electric power deficit exceeding 15% at times. But what remained hidden behind the headlines was a far greater crisis.

India was rapidly running out of enriched uranium stocks to keep its nuclear power plants running.

The nation had about 17 nuclear power plants at the time, with some dating back to the 1960s and churning out too little electricity to make any difference to the nation's power output that remained overly reliant on coal-based thermal plants.

Even the modern ones, such as the two new pressurised heavy water reactors at Tarapur Atomic Power Station or the RAPP-3 and RAPP-4 reactors in the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station with a total capacity of 440 megawatts, were on the verge of shutting down.

The reason was a series of nuclear tests India conducted a decade prior. News of the tests immediately attracted international sanctions and put an end to the supply of enriched uranium that powered the nuclear power plants. India was forced to rely on domestic uranium reserves to keep the plants running, but it knew that the existing stockpile wasn't enough.

India's nuclear Plan B

By the year 1960, the Indian government knew that its uranium reserves were limited but it sat on a stockpile of thorium that accounted for a quarter of global reserves. With the Jawahar Lal Nehru government keen on building nuclear power as a major component of the country's long term energy mix, legendary physicist Homi J. Bhabha, then the secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, devised what was known as "India's three-stage nuclear power programme."

Bhabha's foresight was admirable, and prudent. His plan first materialised in the 1950s even before the country had any nuclear energy capacity to speak of and was yet to fully explore its land for traces of uranium. Even so, Bhabha stressed on long-term energy sovereignty and minced no words in stating that the country would eventually need its precious uranium reserves to power its nuclear weapons programme. The stance quickly followed China's first nuclear weapons test in 1964, not long after Chairman Mao realised China could no longer rely on the Soviet nuclear umbrella to secure its sovereignty.

Bhabha's plan envisaged a three-stage process of nuclear fuel generation. The first stage conceptualised the development of pressurised heavy water reactors which would use naturally-available uranium as primary fuel. PHWR reactors use a complicated and intricate process to run a fission reaction where U-235 atoms are divided into two smaller atoms by bombarding them with a stream of neutrons running at the right speed. The fission process generates intense heat which is then converted into steam and directed to turbines to produce electricity.

The fission reaction also produces spent fuel composed almost entirely of natural uranium in the form of uranium dioxide and about 1% of plutonium, half of which is Plutonium-239, a highly radioactive fissile material used as fuel in nuclear reactors and in nuclear weapons.

Bhabha died in 1966 in an unfortunate air crash near the Mont Blanc mountain in the Franco-Italian border. The incident meant that the father of India's nuclear energy programme did not live to see the first fruits of his tireless endeavour - the commissioning of two 160 MWe Boiling Water Reactors at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station in 1969.

The two reactors, built by General Electric in the United States, were the result of a $95 million contract signed in 1964 which was then GE's largest commercial contract to date. The United States, which helped India with an $80 million long-term loan for the project, agreed to supply enriched uranium to help India produce nuclear power. When the reactors became operational in 1969, India became the only Asian country to run commercial nuclear power plants.

More successes were to follow soon after. When Bhabha was at the helm at DAE, India signed two deals with Canada between 1963 and 1966 for the construction of two 200 MWe CANDU design pressurised heavy water reactors at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station. An important aspect of the deal was that Canada agreed to a technology transfer on reactor design and operations.

Smiling Buddha and the Sethna rearguard

The first reactor was commissioned in 1972 and the second one was underway when India, much to the surprise of the rest of the world, conducted its first nuclear weapons test in May 1974, calling the operation "Smiling Buddha" to project its peaceful intent. The development of the nuclear bomb and its detonation was supervised by Dr. Homi Sethna, Bhabha's understudy who the latter trusted to take forward India's nuclear energy and nuclear weapons roadmap.

Following Bhabha's demise, Sethna took over as the chairman of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay and was chairman of Atomic Energy Commission between 1972 and 1983, spearheading the atomic test and managing India's response as international nuclear taps went dry following the test.

"He pursued legal/diplomatic battle on fuel supplier’s obligation on one hand and demonstrated a technology alternative to run the units on Mixed Oxide fuel derived from the available inventory of the spent fuel on the other," the government said when celebrating Sethna's birth centenary in 2023.

Sethna's endeavour ensured that the second CANDU reactor at Rajasthan Atomic Power Station went live in 1981 even as the first reactor suffered prolonged shutdown and was eventually running at a reduced capacity of 100 MWe due to cracking of its end shield soon after it was commissioned.

By the early 1980s, if not for Sethna's efforts, India's nuclear energy ambitions would have suffered a serious setback. Instead, India embarked on a reactor-building spree as it searched for avenues to import nuclear fuel and dug furiously into its known uranium fields to keep its reactors running.

In 1986, the Madras Atomic Power Station at Kalpakkam went live, hosting two 220 MWe pressurised heavy water reactors. Two more such heavy water reactors were commissioned at the Narora Atomic Power Station in Uttar Pradesh by 1992 and by 1995, the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station in Gujarat activated two new 220 MWe pressurised water reactors.

In the year 2000, at the turn of the millennium, four more pressurised heavy water reactors had begun operating at the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station and Kaiga Generating Station in Karnataka. At this point, India ran twelve 220 MWe PHWRs with four more under construction.

To keep the growing number of nuclear power plants operating at full capacity, India's nuclear planners went on the hunt for nuclear fuel and sizable quantities of heavy water to be used as coolant. Heavy water is a common name for Deuterium Oxide which is made up of two atoms of Deuterium and one atom of oxygen. It is primarily used as a moderator in PHWRs to transfer heat generated during nuclear fission to turbines where electricity is generated.

Indigenising heavy water production

The Atomic Energy Establishment in Trombay first used heavy water imported from the United States to run its 40 MWe CIRUS research reactor supplied by Canada in 1960, but the DEA quickly moved to other sources as it prepared to commission the two Canada-supplied CANDU reactors in Rajasthan and the two GE-supplied heavy water reactors at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station.

The first domestic production of heavy water began in the German-supplied Heavy Water Plant located in the National Fertilizers Limited complex in Nangal, Punjab, in 1962. The facility, at the time, became the world's largest heavy water manufacturing plant, capable of a production capacity of 14Te per annum.

Seven years later, the government established the Heavy Water Projects Board under the Department of Atomic Energy to coincide with the commissioning of two 160 MWe boiling water reactors at Tarapur Atomic Power Station. The Board moved quickly to develop an indigenous solution to produce heavy water at scale using the H2S-H2O dual temperature exchange process and after intense experimentation, analysis and years of rigorous trials, the first indigenous Heavy Water Plant came about in Kota, next to the Maharana Pratap reservoir and close to the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station.

The DAE, in the meantime, had mastered another technology to produce heavy water at scale using the mono-thermal ammonia-Hydrogen exchange process. The first heavy water plant using this technology was established next to the Gujarat State Fertilizer Company's ammonia plant in Baroda in 1977, followed by another Heavy Water Plant in 1978 located close to the fertilizer plant of SPIC, Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.

By 1990, the Heavy Water Board had succeeded in setting up two more mono-thermal ammonia-hydrogen based Heavy Water Plants in Thal and Hazira and another bi-thermal H2S-H2O based plant at Manuguru. Taken together, the six heavy water plants produced sufficient quantities to meet the requirements of PHWR reactors in operation and gave India its first chance to export heavy water to overseas nuclear power reactors. By the turn of the millennium, HWB had bagged an astounding 15 international orders to export up to 227 Te of Heavy Water.

Digging deep

India achieved self-sufficiency in heavy water production within three decades of opening its first plant in Nangal, but getting its hands around sufficient quantities of uranium to keep nuclear power plants running in full capacity remained a forever challenge compounded by international sanctions and limited quantities of domestic reserves, much of which had to be set aside for the development of nuclear weapons.

The country's largest uranium mine was discovered as early as 1951 in Jaduguda, Bihar, with mining operations commencing much later in 1967, coinciding with the incorporation of the Uranium Corporation of India. Over the next three decades, UCIL discovered fresh deposits and commissioned new mines in Bhatin 3 kilometres west of Jaduguda, Nawrapahar located 12 kilometres west of Jaduguda, Bagjata located 30 kilometres east of Jaduguda, Turamdih located 24 kilometres west of Jaduguda, and Banduhurang located in proximity to Turamdih.

The uranium ore extracted from these mines was further enriched and processed using acid leaching technology in the Jaduguda processing plant where ore was converted into uranium peroxide and transported to Nuclear Fuel Complex, Hyderabad which processed the chemical into nuclear-grade fuel.

With mining operations stabilising in Jharkhand, India also discovered significant uranium reserves in Andhra Pradesh's Cudappah Basin which NCPIL believes is one of the largest uranium reserves in the world. However, mining and processing operations in the basin did not start until 2011. The site presently hosts the large Tummalapalle mine and the Tummalapalle processing plant which processes 3,000 tonnes of ore per day using an indigenous alkaline processing technology.

Despite these successes, India's uranium story has been a saga of setbacks, disappointments, and little reward for extreme effort. The mines at Jharkhand processed ore that was of very low quality with a grade of 0.065%, which meant the processing of 1,000 kilograms of ore produced just 65 grams of uranium-235. In comparison, uranium ore in Canada's Athabasca Basin has a grade of 18 to 20%.

For long periods of time, India was forced to rely solely on the mines in and around Jaduguda as significant deposits of uranium in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya remained unexplored for over half a century due to stiff local resistance to mining operations.

Mining operations in Andhra Pradesh's Cudappah Basin began as late as in 2011 and the Mahadek Basin in Meghalaya, believed to contain 9% of India's uranium reserves, continues to remain unmined as of 2026 with the state government prioritising tribal sentiments over any form of mining activity. https://www.pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=158266&reg=3&lang=2

But the greatest challenge to India's uranium mining operations came from the strong and widespread anti-state Naxalite movement, aggravated further by the presence of the country's most significant uranium deposits and mines in regions the Naxals controlled for long periods.

Strongly opposed to any form of industrial or mining activity by the state, Naxalite groups in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh created "no-go" zones in the areas they controlled. They regularly attacked mining infrastructure, destroyed expensive equipment, collected ransom from mining agencies, kidnapped mining officials and prevented geological surveys. Their operations significantly disrupted or delayed the Uranium Corporation's exploration and expansion efforts.

Difficulties in converting low-grade uranium ore into nuclear fuel and the Uranium Corporation's inability to exploit vast uranium deposits because of local resistance and the Naxalite movement created a perfect storm where the country's growing pool of pressurised heavy water reactors began to starve as uranium stocks went dry. What was worse was that five more such reactors were being constructed stage at the time.

The crisis reached its climax in 2008. India's energy deficit peaked at over 15% with existing power generation falling woefully short of the rapidly-growing demand. Investigations into the nuclear energy sector revealed that almost every power plant was running at reduced capacity due to the shortage of uranium.

A report published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2008 theorised that the uranium ore at the Jaduguda mine was no better than 0.03%, less than half of its claimed quality and the ores at the other mines in Jharkhand were of even lesser grade. This significantly affected the production of nuclear-grade fuel for years.https://thebulletin.org/2008/08/indias-nuclear-fuel-shortage/

By 2008, India had an installed nuclear power capacity of 4,220 MWe, but its overall output had shrunk by over 12% in just two years, thanks to a shortage of domestically-produced uranium and international restrictions on the supply of nuclear fuel to Indian reactors.

The turnaround

The timing could not have been better for India to strike pathbreaking overseas deals that could give a fresh breath of life to its nuclear energy story. The country's renewable energy sources contributed a paltry 12,490 MWe to the electricity grid in 2008, and nuclear energy was expected to drive capacity enhancements much more than solar or wind power could.

This was when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stepped up, overcame stiff political opposition and signed a landmark Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the United States. The agreement paved the way for the U.S. to invest in and build nuclear power plants in India and supply enriched uranium to power them.

The return of the United States for the first time since the atomic test in 1974 resulted in another windfall. In February 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement with India for the "Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities." This ensured that ten nuclear reactors in India were to function under IAEA safeguards and hence, qualified to import nuclear fuel from other nations.

In the next two years, India signed major agreements to import vast quantities of uranium from abroad. These orders included 300 metric tonnes of uranium ore concentrate from Areva in France, 2,000 metric tonnes of uranium di-oxide pellets from TVEL Corporation, Russia, and 2,100 metric tonnes of uranium ore concentrate from NAC Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan.

Thanks to the nuclear deal and the IAEA safeguards agreement, India's uranium imports rose from a paltry 60.49 metric tonnes in 2008 to 448 metric tonnes in 2009 and 780 metric tonnes in 2010. Indian nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards, such as the six reactors in Rajasthan, two reactors in Kakrapar, and two more in Tarapur in Gujarat, began operating in full capacity.

The stabilisation in fuel availability only completed the first stage of Homi Bhabha's three-stage nuclear energy plan. Buoyed by the successes of 2008, India went on to sign major uranium import deals with the likes of Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan, put six more reactors under IAEA safeguards, and carried on building several new pressurized heavy water reactors.

By 2025, India had commissioned two new pressurized water reactors in Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, the third and fourth pressurized heavy water reactors in Kakrapar in Gujarat, four pressurized heavy water reactors at Kaiga Generating Station in Karnataka, and three new pressurized heavy water reactors in Rajasthan. As of today, nine such reactors are at various stages of construction across the country.

Under the India-U.S. nuclear deal of 2008, American energy giant Westinghouse is in advanced planning stages to build six 1,280 MWe Light Water Reactors in Kovvada, Andhra Pradesh. French nuclear energy company Areva is also in the process of building six 1,730 MWe European Pressurized Reactors in the Jaitapur Atomic Power Plant in Maharashtra. When completed, the facility will become the world's largest nuclear power generating station, contributing 10% of India's total nuclear energy output.

Striking gold

India's nuclear journey has come a long way, yet nowhere close to what Bhabha envisioned as a permanent state of self-sufficiency. A majority of nuclear power plants continue to rely on uranium sourced from abroad, which means India does not have the luxury of testing its nuclear weapons for fear of sanctions despite growing regional tensions and a worsening arms race in the subcontinent.

But the country's nuclear journey has also been a saga of dogged persistence and resilience amid periods of scarcity and international sanctions. To achieve Bhabha's vision, India began work on the second stage of his three-stage programme by initiating the construction of a Fast Breeder Test Reactor at the Reactor Research Centre in Kalpakkam, later known as the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, as early as 1972.

The second stage of Bhabha's long-term vision involved using plutonium released by pressurized heavy water reactors as spent fuel to power a new generation of unique reactors known as Fast Breeder Reactors. FBRs will use Uranium-Plutonium Mixed Oxide as fuel, negating the need to use enriched uranium. The Uranium-238 blanket around the fuel core will undergo transmutation to produce more fuel. The FBRs will also use Thorium-232 as a blanket to produce fissile Uranium-233 which will be kept aside for use in the third stage.

Built with technology and know-how absorbed from France's Rapsodie reactor concept, The 40 MWe Fast Breeder Test Reactor in Kalpakkam served as the test bed to turn the theoretical second stage into reality. The sodium-cooled FBTR initially used MOX fuel consisting of 30% Plutonium oxide and 70% uranium oxide, but to reduce reliance on UO2 as fuel, scientists used a Mark-I carbide fuel rich in plutonium as fuel to power the reactor.

The reactor went critical in 1985 and continued to run non-stop over the next two decades, giving scientists the opportunity to carry out experiments and finalise instrumentation, measurements of control rods, check changes in reactor temperature after every core configuration change, and conduct other critical tests to create a benchmark for a future reactor design.

The government of India eventually gave the go-ahead for the construction of a prototype 500 MWe Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam in 2003 and also set up Bhartiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Ltd (BHAVINI) as a public undertaking under NPCIL to construct and operate the reactor.

The FBR achieved criticality on April 6, 2026, and is now just months away from formal commissioning. This is perhaps the most significant achievement in India's nuclear journey after the commissioning of the first reactors in 1969 and the landmark nuclear deal with the United States in 2008, setting the stage for a paradigm where India will use plentiful plutonium and thorium to power its reactors and cut down on imports of expensive uranium concentrates.

In his long-term atomic power programme, Bhabha envisaged the creation of Thorium-based Reactors as the third and final stage where Uranium-233 bred in Stage 2 will be used as fuel. These advanced reactors will use a mix of Thorium-232 and Uranium-233 which will undergo transmutation to power the reactors, generate heat, and continuously produce more Uranium-233.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay has already established two Advanced Heavy Water Reactors which serve as testbeds for future Thorium-based Reactors. The 300 MWe test reactors use Thorium-Plutonium mixed oxide and Thorium-Uranium-233 mixed oxide as fuel, obtaining U-233 by reprocessing the reactors' spent fuel and Plutonium from the spent fuel of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors, negating the need to source enriched uranium from external sources.

"AHWR being a technology demonstration reactor will provide impetus for development of technologies for the third stage of India's Nuclear Power Programme. It will provide experience on use of Thorium fuel on a large and industrial scale," said Union Minister of State for Atomic Energy & Space Jitender Singh.

Building on the wins

With the Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam achieving criticality, the immediate need is to exploit the technology to develop dozens of similar FBRs to produce vast quantities of fissile Uranium-233 which will power future Thorium-based reactors. The government has indicated that once the FBR is commissioned, it will provide financial resources to help NPCIL set up two new FBRs at the Kalpakkam facility with more in the pipeline.

"The key to national prosperity, apart from the spirit of the people, lies in a modern age, in the effective combination of three factors, technology, raw materials and capital, of which the first is perhaps the most important, since the creation and adoption of new scientific techniques can, in fact, make-up for a deficiency in natural resources, and reduce the demands on capital," Homi Bhabha once said.

India has now mastered the technology and reduced the demands on natural resources. All it needs is dogged perseverance and world-class industrial efficiency to bring its long-term plan of energy sovereignty into fruition.