Slow and stunted: Plutonium accounting and the growth of fast breeder reactors in India

Abstract

The Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) has projected a large growth of nuclear power in the country predominantly based on breeder reactors. These projections use a simplistic methodology that does not carefully account for the availability of plutonium that is required to fuel breeder reactors. In this paper, we demonstrate that this methodology is problematic, in particular that it would result in negative balances of plutonium if the DAE's projections were to come true. The DAE's projections also ignore constraints coming from reprocessing capacity in the country. As an alternative, we project the possible growth of nuclear power based on breeder reactors using a methodology consistent with plutonium constraints. The resulting breeder reactor capacity will be only between 17% and 40% of the DAE's projections, and will likely never constitute a major source of electricity in India for several decades at the very least.