India's three-stage nuclear power programme

India's three-stage nuclear power programme was formulated by Homi Bhabha, the well-known physicist, 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. The ultimate focus of the programme is on enabling the thorium reserves of India to be utilised in meeting the country's energy requirements. Thorium is particularly attractive for India, as India has only around 1–2% of the global uranium reserves, but one of the largest shares of global thorium reserves at about 25% of the world's known thorium reserves. However, thorium is more difficult to use than uranium as a fuel because it requires breeding, and global uranium prices remain low enough that breeding is not cost effective. India published about twice the number of papers on thorium as its nearest competitors, during each of the years from 2002 to 2006. The Indian nuclear establishment estimates that the country could produce 500 GWe for at least four centuries using just the country's economically extractable thorium reserves. The first Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor has been repeatedly delayed – and is currently expected to be commissioned by October 2022 – and India continues to import thousands of tonnes of uranium from Russia, Kazakhstan, France, and Uzbekistan. The 2005 Indo–US Nuclear Deal and the NSG waiver, which ended more than three decades of international isolation of the Indian civil nuclear programme, have created many hitherto unexplored alternatives for the success of the three-stage nuclear power programme. Thorium fuel cycle Homi Bhabha conceived of the three-stage nuclear programme as a way to develop nuclear energy by working around India's limited uranium resources. Thorium itself is not a fissile material, and thus cannot undergo fission to produce energy. Instead, it must be transmuted to uranium-233 in a reactor fueled by other fissile materials.

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The advanced heavy-water reactor (AHWR) or AHWR-300 is the latest Indian design for a next-generation nuclear reactor that burns thorium in its fuel core. It is slated to form the third stage in India's three-stage fuel-cycle plan. This phase of the fuel cycle plan was supposed to be built starting with a 300MWe prototype in 2016. KAMINI is the world's first thorium-based experimental reactor. It is cooled and moderated by light water, fueled with uranium-233 metal produced by the thorium fuel cycle harnessed by the neighbouring FBTR reactor and produces 30 KW of thermal energy at full power.

Thorium-based nuclear power

Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle—including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production. One advantage of thorium fuel is its low weaponization potential; it is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233/232 and plutonium-238 isotopes that are largely consumed in thorium reactors.

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Mixed oxide fuel, commonly referred to as MOX fuel, is nuclear fuel that contains more than one oxide of fissile material, usually consisting of plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. MOX fuel is an alternative to the low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel used in the light-water reactors that predominate nuclear power generation. For example, a mixture of 7% plutonium and 93% natural uranium reacts similarly, although not identically, to LEU fuel (3 to 5% uranium-235).

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