CHAPTER 4
PLUTONIUM PRODUCTION IN INDIA
AND THE U.S.-INDIA NUCLEAR DEAL
Zia Mian
A. H. Nayyar
R. Rajaraman
M.V. Ramana
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This chapter is a revised version of a report prepared
for the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM).
A version also was published in the journal, Science and
Global Security. The authors are happy to acknowledge
discussions with Frank von Hippel and Hal Feiveson,
and close collaboration with Alexander Glaser. We
wish to thank the Program on Science and Global
Security for its generous support and hospitality.
INTRODUCTION
On July 18, 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush and
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a joint
statement in Washington, DC, laying the grounds for
the resumption of U.S. and international nuclear trade
with India.1 This trade has been restricted for about
3 decades because India is neither a signatory to the
nuclear nonproliferation treaty nor allows International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards on all its
nuclear facilities. The July agreement has generated
political debate in the United States and India, and
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concern on the part of a number of other countries.2
Among the issues is the fear that the agreement serves
to normalize India’s status as a nuclear weapons state
and so weakens the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) and the larger nonproliferation regime. An
important concern is that it may serve to expand India’s
potential nuclear weapons production capabilities and
thus hinder international efforts to end the production
of issile materials for nuclear weapons.
The United States has started to amend its own laws
and policies on nuclear technology transfer and to seek
the necessary changes in the international controls on
the supply of nuclear fuel and technology managed by
the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) of states so as to
allow nuclear trade with India. In exchange for the lifting
of these restrictions, India’s government has identiied
several nuclear facilities that it will designate as civilian
and will volunteer for IAEA safeguarding. Currently,
India has four power reactors under IAEA safeguards,
the U.S.-built Tarapur 1 and 2, and the Canadian-built
Rajasthan 1 and 2. The two Koodankulam reactors that
are under construction by Russia also will be subject to
safeguards.
India has proposed that it will place eight additional
reactors under safeguards between 2006 and 2014, each
with a capacity of 220 MWe (see Appendix I). These
reactors are:3
• Two Rajasthan reactors still under construction,
RAPS 5 and 6, which would be made available
for IAEA monitoring when they commence
operation in 2007 and 2008 respectively,
• RAPS 3 and 4, which are already operating but
would only be available for safeguards in 2010,
• The two Kakrapar reactors, which would be
made available for safeguards in 2012, and
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• The two reactors at Narora which would become
available for safeguards in 2014.
Some of the facilities at the Nuclear Fuel Complex,
Hyderabad, also have been identiied as civilian and
are to be offered for safeguards by 2008.4 Other facilities
to be declared civilian include three heavy water plants
(leaving at least two out of safeguards), and the two
Away-from-Reactor spent fuel storage facilities that
contain spent fuel from the safeguarded Tarapur and
Rajasthan reactors.
India would shut down the Canadian-build CIRUS
reactor permanently in 2010 and also would shift the
spent fuel from the APSARA reactor to a site outside
the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and make it
available for safeguarding in 2010.
A signiicant proportion of India’s nuclear complex
would remain outside IAEA safeguards and continue
to have a “strategic” function (see Appendix I). This
military nuclear complex would include the Tarapur 3
and 4 reactors, each of 540 MWe capacity, the Madras
1 and 2 reactors, and the four power reactors at Kaiga.5
Together, these unsafeguarded reactors have 2,350
MWe of electricity generation capacity. India also will
not accept safeguards on the Prototype Fast Breeder
Reactor (PFBR) and the Fast Breeder Test Reactor
(FBTR), both located at Kalpakkam. Facilities associated
with the nuclear submarine propulsion program
would not be offered for safeguards. Reprocessing
and enrichment facilities also are to remain outside
safeguards.6 Finally, under the deal, India retains the
right to determine which future nuclear facilities it
builds would be civilian and open to safeguards and
which would not.
At the March 2006 summit in New Delhi between
President Bush and Prime Minister Singh, it was
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announced that the U.S. Government was satisied
with this proposed Indian plan to separate its program
into a civilian and a military component.7 However, the
inal shape and status of the deal still is unclear since
the U.S. Congress has not agreed on amendments to
existing laws and may attach conditions that India may
not accept. There also needs to be a consensus among
the NSG countries in support of making an exemption
to its rules for India.8
Technical issues related to issile materials that
are involved in these concerns about the agreement
are discussed below.9 First India’s current plutonium
production and stockpiles are estimated. The
signiicance for India’s future weapons-useable
plutonium production capabilities of the line India has
drawn between its civilian and military facilities are
then assessed.
INDIA’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Established in 1948, India’s Atomic Energy
Commission turned to the United Kingdom (UK)
for the design and enriched uranium fuel for its irst
nuclear reactor, Apsara. Similarly, the CIRUS reactor
was supplied by Canada, while the heavy water used
in it came from the United States. India’s irst power
reactors at Tarapur and Rawatbhata were supplied by
the United States and Canada respectively. A U.S. design
was used for its irst reprocessing plant in Trombay.
Some of these technologies and materials contributed
to the production and separation of the plutonium
used in India’s 1974 nuclear weapons test. Due to this
test and the subsequent refusal to give up its nuclear
weapons and sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty
(NPT), India has been kept largely outside the system
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of trade of nuclear technology that has developed over
the past 3 decades.
India over the years has built a nuclear power
program, with 15 reactors [Appendix I] providing an
installed capacity of 3,310 megawatts electric (MWe),
which accounts for about 3 percent of India’s installed
electricity generation capacity. Thirteen of the reactors
are Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), the
irst two of which were supplied by Canada. The other
PHWR reactors are based largely on the Canadian
design. The latest evolution of the design has increased
the capacity from 220 to 540 MWe. The other two
power reactors are Boiling Water Reactors supplied by
the United States.
Only the four foreign supplied reactors currently
are under IAEA safeguards. Two 1,000 MWe reactors
being built by Russia under a 1988 deal also will be
safeguarded. These two large reactors will increase
India’s nuclear capacity by over 50 percent in the next
few years. Figure 1 shows the development of India’s
safeguarded and unsafeguarded nuclear capacity and
how it will evolve in the coming years, including the
effects of the U.S.-India nuclear deal.
Figure 1. The Evolution of India’s Installed Nuclear
Electricity Generation Capacity.
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For decades, India’s Department of Atomic Energy
(DAE) has pursued an ambitious fast-breeder reactor
development program. This involves separating
plutonium from the spent fuel produced in natural uranium reactors and using it to fuel fast-neutron breeder
reactors, which in turn could be used to produce U-233
that eventually would serve to fuel breeder reactors
operating on a Th-U-233 closed fuel cycle.10 These
efforts have made halting progress: The irst breeder
reactor to be built, the Fast Breeder Test Reactor, was
due to become operational in 1976 but started only in
1985 and has been plagued with problems.11 The 500
MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor is not expected to
be completed until 2010, if all goes according to plan.
India also has begun work on a prototype plutoniumthorium-uranium-233 fuelled Advanced Heavy Water
Reactor (AHWR) to gain experience with the thorium
and uranium-233 fuel cycle.12
India conducted its irst nuclear weapons test in May
1974. There were another ive tests in 1998, involving
ission weapons and a thermonuclear weapon. There
are reports that at least one test used plutonium that
was less than weapons grade.13 India is believed to
have a stockpile of perhaps 40-50 nuclear weapons,
and one report cites plans for 300-400 weapons within
a decade.14
FISSILE MATERIALS IN INDIA
India is producing plutonium for its nuclearweapons programs. Along with Israel, Pakistan, and
perhaps North Korea, it may be the only state currently
doing so. The ive NPT nuclear weapons states,
United States, Russia, UK, France, and (informally)
China, have all announced an end to issile material
production for weapons. India also is reprocessing the
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spent fuel from its nuclear power reactors, an option
pursued currently only by Russia, France, and the UK.
Japan is about to begin operating a large reprocessing
plant. Other countries simply store their spent nuclear
fuel.
Weapons Grade Plutonium.
India’s weapons grade plutonium comes from the
40 megawatt thermal (MWt) CIRUS and 100 MWt
Dhruva reactors. Assuming that the reactors operate
at full power when they are available allows an upperbound estimate of plutonium production. At full
power and an availability factor of 70 percent, each
year CIRUS would produce about 9.2 kg of weapons
grade plutonium, and Dhruva would produce about
23 kg of weapons grade plutonium.15 The estimated
cumulative weapons grade plutonium produced by
2006 CIRUS is 234 kg and by Dhruva about 414 kg.16
Spent fuel from CIRUS and Dhruva is reprocessed
at the Trombay reprocessing plant (with a capacity of
about 50 tons of spent fuel per year). It is hard to know
how much of the plutonium that has been recovered
from spent fuel has been incorporated into weapons.
It is estimated that over the years a total of 131
kg of India’s weapons grade plutonium has been
consumed in nuclear weapons tests, as reactor fuel
and in processing losses. This would leave India
with a current stockpile of about 500 kg of weapons
grade plutonium.17 It is typically assumed that 5 kg of
plutonium is suficient for a simple nuclear weapon.
(More advanced designs could use as little as 3 kg).
Thus, India’s current stockpile of weapons grade
plutonium would be equivalent to about 100 nuclear
weapons. It is not known how much of this has been
fabricated into weapons components.
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Civil Plutonium.
Power reactors produce plutonium in their fuel as
a normal byproduct of energy generation. As of May
2006, India’s unsafeguarded reactors had produced
about 149 terrawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. Their
accumulated spent fuel produced so far would contain
about 11.5 tons of plutonium.18 They are now producing
about 1.45 tons of plutonium per year. The currently
safeguarded power reactors have produced a total of
108 TWh of electricity, and 1266 tons of spent fuel,
containing about 6.8 tons of plutonium.19
In India, the chosen way of dealing with the
spent nuclear fuel from power reactors is through
reprocessing. India has two large reprocessing plants at
Tarapur (about 100 tons/year) and Kalpakkam (about
100 tons/year) to recover plutonium from spent power
reactor fuel.20 It plans to increase its annual reprocessing
capacity to 850 tons by 2014 to meet the needs of its fast
breeder reactor program and AHWR.21
The “reactor-grade” plutonium in the high burnup
spent fuel being discharged by these reactors has
a different mix of isotopes from weapons grade
plutonium. However, reactor grade plutonium can be
used to make a nuclear explosive and, as mentioned
earlier, one of India’s May 1998 nuclear tests is reported
to have involved such material. In his history of the
Indian nuclear weapons program, George Perkovich
claims “knowledgeable Indian sources conirmed” use
of nonweapons grade plutonium in one of the 1998
tests, while Raj Chengappa in a semi-oficial history of
1998 tests claims “one of the devices . . . used reactor
grade or dirty plutonium.”22 An estimated 8 kg of such
reactor grade plutonium would be required to make a
simple nuclear weapon.23
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Figure 2 summarizes these estimates for the different stockpiles of plutonium that India has accumulated
so far. However, the exact amount of separated plutonium that India has produced so far is not known.
Figure 2. India’s Total Plutonium Production.
The Uranium Constraint.
One important reason for the DAE’s willingness to
agree to have more of its nuclear facilities placed under
safeguards is India’s severe and growing shortage of
domestic uranium. An Indian oficial told the BBC soon
after the U.S.-India deal was announced, “The truth is,
we were desperate. We have nuclear fuel to last only
till the end of 2006. If this agreement had not come
through we might have as well closed down our nuclear
reactors and by extension our nuclear program.”24 The
former head of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
has reported that “uranium shortage” has been “a
major problem . . . for some time.”25
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited
(NPCIL) data shows that most of its reactors have had
lower capacity factors in the last few years.26 Figure 3
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shows the recent trend in operating capacity factors at
India’s nuclear power reactors as reported by NPCIL. It
does not include data for Narora-1 and Rajasthan-1, both
of which were shut-down for part of this period. The
Indian Planning Commission noted that these reduced
load factors were “primarily due to nonavailability
of nuclear fuel because the development of domestic
mines has not kept pace with addition of generating
capacity.”27
Figure 3. The Recent Decline in Indian Nuclear
Power Plant Capacity Factors.
As of May 2006, the total electric capacity of
India’s power reactors that were domestically fuelled
was 2,990 MWe—this includes the Rajasthan 1 and 2
reactors, which are under safeguards but have to be
fuelled by domestic uranium. At 80 percent capacity,
all these reactors would require about 430 tons of
natural uranium fuel per year. The weapons grade
plutonium production reactors, CIRUS and Dhruva,
consume about another 35 tons of uranium annually.
The uranium enrichment facility would require
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about 10 tons of natural uranium feed a year. Thus,
it is estimated that the total current requirements are
about 475 tons of domestic natural uranium per year.
Nuclear Fuel Complex Chairman R. Kalidas has said
that India’s current annual uranium requirement is on
the order of 400-500 tons of uranium oxide.28
Figure 4 shows the different demands for domestic
uranium in India. At various times, India has been
able to import limited amounts of low enriched fuel
for its Tarapur reactors, from the United States (which
provided the reactors), Russia, France, and China.
Figure 4. Annual Consumption of Domestic
Uranium in India.
In comparison, it is estimated that current uranium
production within India is less than 300 tons of
uranium a year, well short of these requirements. It
is assumed that India mines and mills 2000 tons of
uranium ore per day, 300 days per year, at an average
ore grade of 0.05 percent uranium. The actual ore
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grade being mined may be only 0.03 percent, since the
better quality ore already has been used. The Jaduguda
mill has a processing capacity of about 2,100 tons ore/
day and may only have been producing 230 tons per
year.29 But efforts are being made to expand uranium
production. An oficial report notes that one mill is
under construction at Banduhurang, Jharkhand, and
was expected to be completed in mid-2006, and that
work is underway on another at Turamdih, which will
have a capacity of 3,000 tons per day of ore (about 450
tons/year of uranium).30
DAE has been able to continue to operate its reactors
by using uranium stockpiled from the period when
India’s nuclear generating capacity was much smaller.
Estimates are that, in the absence of cut backs in India’s
nuclear power generation or uranium imports, this
stockpile will be exhausted by 2007.
India is estimated to have total conventional
uranium resources of about 95,500 tons of uranium,
suficient to supply about 10 GWe installed capacity
of PHWRs for 40 years or so.31 However, the DAE’s
efforts to open new uranium mines in the country have
met with stiff resistance, primarily because of concerns
in the communities around existing mines about the
health impacts of uranium mining and milling.32 State
governments in Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya,
where DAE has found signiicant uranium deposits,
have yet to approve new licenses for uranium mining
and milling activities.33
It is possible, however, that DAE may be able to
overcome this resistance. The most likely new sites are
in the districts of Nalgonda and Kadapa, in Andhra
Pradesh, with respective potential capacities of about
150-200 tons and 250 tons of uranium a year.34 If these
mines are developed, then India could meet its current
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domestic uranium needs for both its nuclear power
reactors and weapons program. In the meantime, old
mines are being reopened and existing mines expanded,
including at Jaduguda.35
In the next few years, the domestic uranium demand
for India’s unsafeguarded reactors will increase further
by about 140 tons/year, to 575 tons per year, as the 540
MWe Tarapur-3 and the 220 MWe Kaiga-3 and Kaiga4 reactors are completed and begin operation in 2007.
However, the total domestic uranium requirement
will begin to decrease as some of the currently
unsafeguarded reactors are opened for inspection
in 2010, 2012, and 2014 and can thus be fueled with
imported uranium along with the Rajasthan-1 and 2
reactors (see Figure 5). Consequently, if India is able
to meet the additional demand for domestic uranium
until 2010, the availability of uranium imports allowed
by the U.S.-India deal thereafter will give it a growing
excess uranium production capacity that could be used
for weapons purpose.
Figure 5. Estimated Annual Domestic
Uranium Requirements for Unsafeguarded
Heavy Water Power Reactors.36
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India has offered to put 1,760 MWe of PHWRs
under safeguards (including two reactors under
construction) in addition to the two Rajasthan PHWRs
with a combined capacity of 300 MWe that are already
under safeguards. Without access to international
uranium, all these reactors would have to be fueled
using domestic uranium. At an 80 percent capacity
factor, they would require about 300 tons of uranium
annually.
If the deal goes through, the DAE will be able
to purchase these 300 tons of uranium from the
international market, in effect freeing up the equivalent
of India’s entire current uranium production for
possible use in military facilities. With Nalgonda on
line, the uranium available for the unsafeguarded
power and weapons grade plutonium production
reactors and the enrichment program increases to 450500 tons/year. This would yield a uranium surplus of
75-125 tons a year after 2014.
There are several ways in which India could use
its freed-up domestic uranium. In particular, concern
has been raised about the possibility that it might be
diverted to use in the weapons program. This option has
been suggested by, among others, K. Subrahmanyam,
former head of the National Security Advisory Board,
who has argued that:
Given India's uranium ore crunch and the need to build
up our minimum credible nuclear deterrent arsenal as
fast as possible, it is to India's advantage to categorize
as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to
be refueled by imported uranium and conserve our
native uranium fuel for weapons grade plutonium
production.37
There are different ways in which this could be
accomplished. One is that India could choose to build
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a third reactor dedicated to making plutonium for its
nuclear weapons. There have been proposals for many
years to build another large plutonium production
reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in
Bombay.38 The proposed reactor would be similar to
the 100 MWt Dhruva that has been operating at BARC
since 1985. A decision on whether to go ahead is
expected early in 2007.39 If a reactor of the same power
rating as Dhruva is built, it could yield an additional
20-30 kg of plutonium, i.e., several bombs worth, each
year.
India also could choose to use some of its domestic
uranium to make weapons grade plutonium in one of
its unsafeguarded PHWRs. This can be done by running
the reactor in a “production” mode, i.e., by limiting the
time the fuel is irradiated, through faster refueling.40
This is beyond the normal design requirement of
PHWR refueling machines but might be possible.
Assuming such high refueling rates are sustainable,
then a typical 220 MWe pressurized heavy water
reactor could produce between 150-200 kg/year of
weapons grade plutonium when operated at 60-80
percent capacity.41 Even one such reactor, if run on
a production mode, could increase the existing rate
of plutonium production by a factor of six to eight.42
The net penalty for running one 220 MWe reactor in
production mode is 190 tons of natural uranium.43
To offset this additional requirement of 190 tons/
year of uranium if India were to operate a single 220
MWe PHWR in weapons grade plutonium production
mode, it could recycle some of the depleted uranium
recovered from the spent fuel from this reactor into
the other seven unsafeguarded power reactors. This
scheme involves fuelling 25 percent of the core with
depleted uranium (containing 0.61 percent U-235)
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and ends up saving 20 percent of the normal natural
uranium requirement, with the average burn up
reduced to 5400 MWd/tHM.44
The resulting 20 percent savings on the roughly
306 tons/year of natural uranium the seven power
reactors require is equivalent to 61 tons/year of natural
uranium. The net penalty of running one reactor in
production mode is reduced from 190 tons/year to
about 130/tons per year. This implies that India could
operate an unsafeguarded 220 MWe heavy water
reactor in production mode, provided the Nalgonda
and other mines can yield an additional 200 tons/year
of uranium, and that India has suficient reprocessing
capacity to maintain the necessary low of depleted
uranium.
India already has fuelled some PHWRs using
natural uranium and depleted uranium recovered as a
byproduct of weapons grade plutonium production—
including the Rajasthan-3 and 4, Kaiga-2 and Madras2 reactors.45 It has used depleted uranium recovered
from low burn-up fuel from CIRUS and Dhruva.46
These reactors generate only about 30 tons/year of
spent fuel. However, there is a stock of about 750 tons
of such spent fuel.47 This would sufice for roughly 4 to
5 years if all the power reactors ran on a mixed natural
and depleted uranium core.
Power Reactor Spent Fuel.
The nuclear deal does not constrain India’s use of the
11.5 tons of plutonium from the spent fuel discharged
by any of its currently unsafeguarded reactors. Each of
the six currently operating reactors to be placed under
safeguards, operating at 80 percent capacity, will add
about 120 kg/year of plutonium during its remaining
unsafeguarded operation. The total contribution from
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these six reactors will be about 4,300 kg before they are
all inally under safeguards
India’s total annual unsafeguarded plutonium
production will increase from the current 1,450 kg/
year as reactors under construction come into operation
next year. It will decline in coming years as reactors are
opened for inspection. Plutonium production will fall
from about 2,000 kg/year in 2007 to about 1,250kg/
year after 2014, when it will stabilize (see Figure 6)
unless additional unsafeguarded reactors are built.
Thus, the separation plan will serve to reduce India’s
annual production of unsafeguarded plutonium by
about one-third.
Figure 6. Annual Production of Unsafeguarded
Plutonium from All Indian Power Reactors from
2007 until 2016, as Reactors Are Progressively
Placed under Safeguards.
The Fast Breeder Reactor Program.
India’s irst large breeder reactor, the 500 MWe,
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) is under
construction at Kalpakkam, near Madras. It is part
of a larger complex that includes the Madras PHWR
reactors and a reprocessing plant. This entire complex
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is being kept outside safeguards.48 DAE chairman Anil
Kakodkar has declared that “Both from the point of
view of maintaining long term energy security and for
maintaining the minimum credible deterrent the Fast
Breeder Programme just cannot be put on the civilian
list.”49 This suggests that the breeder may be used
to produce weapons grade plutonium. The PFBR is
expected to be completed in 2010.
Fueled initially by reactor grade plutonium
separated from PHWR spent fuel, the PFBR would
produce weapons grade plutonium in both its radial
and axial blankets of depleted uranium while the
plutonium recovered from the core could be recycled
for use again as fuel (Figure 7). To recover the weapons
grade plutonium, the core and blanket fuel assemblies
would have to be reprocessed separately. There will be
a dedicated reprocessing plant specially for the FBR.50
Figure 7. The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor Burns ReactorGrade Plutonium in Its Core and Produces Weapons-grade
Plutonium in Its Radial and Axial Blankets.
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The PFBR is designed to have a thermal power
of 1,250 MW and an initial inventory of 1910 kg of
plutonium in its core.51 It is estimated that at 80 percent
capacity the PFBR could produce on the order of 135
kg of weapons grade plutonium every year in its
blanket.52 This would amount to about 25-30 weapons
worth of plutonium a year, a four- to ive-fold increase
over India’s current weapons plutonium production
capacity.
India plans to build four additional breeder reactors
by 2020, and then move to larger 1,000 MWe breeders
and eventually install 500 GWe of breeder capacity.53
Each of the four planned 500 MWe breeder reactors
would need two initial cores before they would be
able to begin recycling their own plutonium, a total of
about 16 tons.54 India would appear to have more than
suficient unsafeguarded plutonium for placing all four
of the planned breeders in the military sector. If these
ive breeders are built and all are kept military, then in
about 15 years, India would be able to produce about
500-800 kg per year of weapons grade plutonium from
them.
CONCLUSIONS
We have assessed plutonium production capabilities in India and how they might change as a result of
the U.S.-India deal. India’s current stockpile of weapons
grade plutonium from its CIRUS and Dhruva reactors
is found it to be about 500 kg. Assuming a typical igure
of 5 kg of plutonium for each nuclear warhead, this
stockpile would be suficient for roughly 100 weapons.
Under the deal, India will be able to produce another
45 kg of weapons grade plutonium from its CIRUS
reactor before it is shut down in 2010. The Dhruva
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reactor will continue to operate and add about 20-25
kg/year. A second Dhruva sized reactor that is being
considered would add a similar amount each year.
The most important potential increase in India’s
weapons grade plutonium production will come from
its unsafeguarded fast breeder reactor, the PFBR, to
be completed in 2010. We have estimated that it could
produce about 130 kg of weapons grade plutonium
each year, a four-fold increase in India’s current
production capability. However, the breeder would
have remained unsafeguarded and produced the same
amount of plutonium even in the absence of the U.S.India deal.
India has a stockpile of about 11 tons of
unsafeguarded reactor-grade plutonium. This stockpile
is currently increasing at about two tons/year. We
have estimated that the reactors India has offered to
be safeguarded by 2014, in a phased manner as part
of the deal, will contribute in total another four tons
of unsafeguarded plutonium before they are opened
for inspection. The eight reactors that are designated as
military and will remain unsafeguarded will contribute
1,250 kg of reactor grade plutonium per year. All this
reactor grade plutonium is also potentially weaponsuseable.
We ind that India’s current domestic production of
natural uranium of about 300 tons/year is insuficient
to fuel its unsafeguarded reactors and sustain its current
weapons grade plutonium and enriched uranium
production, which altogether require about 475 tons a
year. India has been able to escape this constraint so
far by using stocks of previously mined and processed
uranium.
Because of access to Uranium imports allowed by
the deal, India may be able to produce 60-100 kg/year of
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weapons grade plutonium by partially running one of
its unsafeguarded power reactors at low burn up. This
will require operating the reactor refueling machines
at much higher rates than normal and may limit the
extent to which this is possible. A key constraint on
this is the recycling of low-burn-up depleted uranium
(containing about 0.6 percent Uranium-23 percent) as
fuel. This in turn will depend on the operating capacity
of India’s reprocessing plants.
India already has achieved the issile material
requirements for a “minimal” arsenal, and it has been
argued for some time that it should end production
of issile material for weapons.55 It has been shown
that half a dozen modest Hiroshima-yield weapons
if dropped on major cities in South Asia could kill
over a million people.56 This suggests that several
dozen weapons would more than sufice to meet any
reasonable criteria for “minimum deterrence.”57 This
number would permit a nuclear attack with a dozen
warheads and provide for suficient redundancy to
deal with any concerns about survivability, reliability,
and interception.58
Rather than pursue the option of a large expansion
of its nuclear arsenal, India could choose to suspend
all further production of issile materials for weapons
purposes pending the negotiation and entry into force of
a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. This also is a necessary
step in progress towards nuclear disarmament.
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APPENDIX I
POWER REACTORS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
India (note: military reactors will not be open for
safeguards)
Power reactor
Type
Power
Start-up date
(MWe)
Safeguards
(June 2006)
Open for
Safeguards
Kaiga-1
HWR
220
16-Nov-00
Unsafeguarded
Military
Kaiga-2
HWR
220
16-Mar-00
Unsafeguarded
Military
Kakrapar-1
HWR
220
6-May-93
Unsafeguarded
2012
Kakrapar-2
HWR
220
1-Sep-95
Unsafeguarded
2012
Madras-1
HWR
170
27-Jan-84
Unsafeguarded
Military
Madras-2
HWR
220
21-Mar-86
Unsafeguarded
Military
Narora-1
HWR
220
1-Jan-91
Unsafeguarded
2014
Narora-2
HWR
220
1-Jul-92
Unsafeguarded
2014
Rajasthan-1
HWR
100
16-Dec-73
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Rajasthan-2
HWR
200
1-Apr-81
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Rajasthan-3
HWR
220
1-Jun-00
Unsafeguarded
2010
Rajasthan-4
HWR
220
23-Dec-00
Unsafeguarded
2010
Tarapur-1
BWR
160
28-Oct-69
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Tarapur-2
BWR
160
28-Oct-69
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Tarapur-4
HWR
540
12-Sep-05
Unsafeguarded
Military
HWR
220
2007 (planned) Unsafeguarded
Military
Under
Construction
Kaiga-3
Kaiga-4
HWR
220
Kudankulam-1
VVER*
1000
2007 (planned)
2007 (planned) Unsafeguarded
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Kudankulam-2
VVER
1000
2008 (planned)
Safeguarded
Safeguarded
Rajasthan-5
HWR
220
2007 (planned) Unsafeguarded
2007
Rajasthan-6
HWR
220
2008 (planned) Unsafeguarded
2008
Tarapur-3
HWR
540
2007 (planned) Unsafeguarded
Military
*Russian: Pressurized Water Reactor.
120
Military
ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 4
1. The U.S.-India nuclear agreement is at www.whitehouse.gov/
news/releases/2005/07/20050718-6.html.
2. The politics and broader policy issues of the deal are
discussed in Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana, “Wrong Ends, Means
and Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal with India,” Arms Control
Today, January/February 2006, www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_0102/JANFEB-IndiaFeature.asp.
3. Implementation of the India-United States Joint Statement of
July 18, 2005: India’s Separation Plan, mea.gov.in/treatiesagreement/
2006/11ta1105200601.pdf.
4. Fuel cycle facilities to be safeguarded are Uranium Oxide
Plant (Block A), Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant (Palletizing)
(Block A), Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant (Assembly) (Block
A), Enriched Uranium Oxide Plant, Enriched Fuel Fabrication
Plant, and Gadolinia Facility. There seem to be other fuel
production facilities at the Nuclear Fuel Complex that will remain
unsafeguarded, such as the New Uranium Oxide Fuel Plant;
www.aerb.gov.in/t/annrpt/anr99/srnp.htm, and T. S. Subramanian,
“Fuelling Power,” Frontline, March 16-29, 2002, www.frontlineonnet.
com/l1906/19060840.htm.
5. Implementation of the India-United States Joint Statement of
July 18, 2005: India’s Separation Plan, mea.gov.in/treatiesagreement/
2006/11ta1105200601.pdf.
6. The PREFRE reprocessing plant has had safeguards in place
when running spent fuel from Rajasthan 1 and 2.
7. President Bush and Prime Minister Singh Press
Conference, New Delhi, March 2, 2006, www.whitehouse.gov/news/
releases/2006/03/20060302-9.html.
8. The Nuclear Suppliers Group member states are Argentina,
Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada,
China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan,
Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Holland,
New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Romania,
Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United
States, www.nuclearsuppliersgroup.org.
121
9. Some of these issues are also discussed in a recent report by
Ashley Tellis, Atoms for War, Carnegie Endowment, 2006, www.
carnegieendowment.org/iles/atomsforwarrevised1.pdf.
10. R. Chidambaram and C. Ganguly, “Plutonium and
Thorium in the Indian Nuclear Programme,” Current Science, Vol.
70, No. 1, 1996.
11. K. V. Suresh Kumar, R. P. Kapoor, P. V. Ramalingam, B.
Rajendran, G. Srinivasan, K. V. Kasiviswanathan, “Fast Breeder
Test Reactor. 15 Years of Operating Experience,” Paper presented
at the Technical Meeting on Operational and Decommissioning
Experience with Fast Reactors, IAEA-TM-25332, IAEA, 2002, pp.
15-27.
12. B. Battacherjee, “An Overview of RandD in Fuel Cycle
Activities of AHWR,” Paper presented at the 14th Indian Nuclear
Society Conference, Kalpakkam, December 17-19, 2003, www.
indian-nuclear-society.org.in/conf/2003/1.pdf.
13. George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on
Global Proliferation, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1999, p. 428.
14. Nuclear Notebook, “India's Nuclear Forces, 2005,” Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2005. Indian Defense
ministry sources have mentioned plans for 300-400 weapons.
Vivek Raghuvanshi, “India to Stay the Course on Nuke Doctrine,”
Defense News, November 1, 2004.
15. This assumes a burn-up of 1,000 megawatt-days per ton of
heavy metal (MWd/tHM) and a plutonium content of 0.9 kg/t in
the spent fuel.
16. We assume that both CIRUS and Dhruva (since 1988) have
had an average annual availability factor of 70 percent, except for
CIRUS between 1991-97, when we assume a 60 percent availability
factor because of reported problems with aging. R. C. Sharma and
S. K. Agarwal, “Research Reactor: Its Refurbishment and Future
Utilisation,” BARC Newsletter, June 2004. We assume Khushab has
been operating since 1998 with a 70 percent availability factor.
17. We emphasize that all of this plutonium may not have
been separated. ISIS estimates India may have accumulated 575
kg of weapons grade plutonium as of the end of 2004; see ISIS,
India's Military Plutonium Inventory, End 2004, www.isis-online.org/
global_stocks/end2003/india_military_plutonium.pdf.
122
18. Assuming a 7,000 MWd/tHM burn-up, thermal eficiency
of 0.29, Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code calculations by
Alexander Glaser and Jungmin Kang show the fresh spent fuel
contains about 3.8 kg of plutonium per ton of heavy metal (tHM).
As the spent fuel cools, its Pu-241 decays with a 14-year half-life
and the overall plutonium content therefore decreases by about
1 percent over 5 years to 3.75 kg per ton of spent fuel. Indian
PHWRs now have an average burn-up of 7,000 MWd/tHM. K.
C. Sahoo and S. A. Bhardwaj, “Fuel Performance In Water Cooled
Nuclear Reactors,” Paper presented at the 14th Indian Nuclear
Society Annual Conference, Kalpakkam, December 17-19, 2003,
www.indian-nuclear-society.org.in/conf/2003/12.pdf.
19. Currently safeguarded reactors are Tarapur 1 and 2 and
Rajasthan 1 and 2. The Tarapur reactors have a thermal eficiency
of 31.2 percent, an average fuel burn-up of 19,500 MWd/tHM,
and produce 8 kg/tHM of plutonium.
20. Z. Mian and A.H. Nayyar, “An Initial Analysis of 85Krypton Production and Dispersion from Reprocessing in India
and Pakistan,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2002.
21. Ibid.
22. Perkovich, pp. 428-430; Chengappa, pp. 417-418.
23. J. Carson Mark, “Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade
Plutonium,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1993, pp.
111-124.
24. Sanjeev Srivastava, “Indian P.M. Feels Political Heat,”
BBC, July 26, 2005, available from news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/
south_asia/4715797.stm.
25. A. Gopalakrishnan, “Indo-US Nuclear Cooperation: A
Nonstarter?” Economic and Political Weekly, July 2, 2005.
26. Nuclear Power Corporation of India, www.npcil.nic.in/
PlantsInOperation.asp.
27. Planning Commission, Government of India, Mid-Term
Appraisal of the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007), planningcommission.
nic.in/midterm/cont_eng1.htm. Chapter 10, pp. 229-230.
28. RWE Nukem, December 2004, p. 24.
29. Ibid.
30. Project Implementation Status Report of Central Sector
Projects Costing Rs. 20 Crore and Above, October-December 2005,
Infrastructure and Project Monitoring Division, Government of
123
India, April 2006, mospi.nic.in/pi_status_report_oct_dec2005.pdf.
The Turamdih plant is expected to be commissioned by December,
2006, “UCIL exploring uranium ore in Chattisgarh, Rajasthan,
Karnataka,” PTI, June 5, 2006.
31. “Interview with R. Kalidas,” RWE Nukem, December
2004.
32. Xavier Dias, “DAE's Gambit,” Economic and Political Weekly,
August 6, 2005.
33. T. S. Subramanian, “Uranium Crisis,” Frontline, January
13, 2006.
34. At Nalgonda, the Uranium Corporation of India claims it
expects to mine 1,250 tons of uranium ore per day. “Environmental
Clearance for Uranium Mining,” Hindustan Times, December
12, 2005. Assuming an average grade of 0.04-0.05 percent, this
implies 150-187.5 tons/year of uranium. For Kadapa, see MECON
Limited (Ranchi), EIA/EMP Report For Tummalapalle Uranium
Project, Uranium Corporation of India Ltd, 2006. As noted above,
India expects a large increase in ore processing capacity in 2006
that can more than handle this increased demand.
35. T.S. Subramanian and Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay,
“Back To Singhbhum,” Frontline, January 13, 2006.
36. This includes under construction HWRs as they come into
operation and excludes HWRs once they come under safeguards
and can be fuelled by imported uranium. It also excludes CIRUS
and Dhruva and uranium demand from the enrichment program,
which add up to about 45 tons per year.
37. K Subrahmanyam, “India and the Nuclear Deal,” Times of
India, December 12, 2005.
38. “BARC Planning New Dhruva-Type Reactor,” Hindustan
Times, April 28, 1999.
39. Mark Hibbs, “Replication of Dhruva Reactor Proposed for
Next Indian Economic Plan,” Nuclear Fuel, May 8, 2006.
40. This possibility is suggested by Albright, Berkhout, and
Walker, p. 267. In normal operation, a 200 MWe PHWR refueling
machine would need to change 8 fuel bundles a day. A typical
refueling machine apparently requires 2-3 hours to change 4-8
fuel bundles, see, e.g., CANDU Fundamentals, canteach.candu.org/
library/20040700.pdf, p. 179. For 1,000 MWd/tHM burnup, such
refueling would have to be repeated seven times a day.
124
41. A. H. Nayyar, A. H. Toor, and Z. Mian, “Fissile Material
Production in South Asia,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 6, No.
2, 1997, pp. 189-203.
42. A 220 MWe power reactor operating at 1,000 MWd/tHM
burn-up would require a seven times higher refueling rate than
at its normal, 7,000 MWd/tHM, operation. This appears to be
possible given the on-line refueling capabilities of these reactors.
43. Uranium consumption is about 222 tons/year in production
mode versus 32 tons in power mode.
44. Baltej Singh, P. D. Krishnani and R. Srivenkatesan, “Use
of Depleted Uranium in Equilibrium Core of Standard PHWRs:
A Complete Study,” (Paper presented at the 16th Annual
Conference of the Indian Nuclear Society, 2005), www.indiannuclear-society.org.in/conf/2005/pdf_3/topic_1/T1_CP5_Baltej_Singh.
pdf. The depleted uranium requirement is twice that of the natural
uranium it replaces, in order to maintain reactor performance.
45. Singh, Krishnani, and Srivenkatesan, “Use of Depleted
Uranium in Equilibrium Core of Standard PHWRs: A Complete
Study.”
46. Depleted uranium fuel is manufactured at the Nuclear
Fuel Complex using uranium recovered by the reprocessing plant
which handles spent fuel from CIRUS and Dhruva. C. Ganguly,
“Manufacturing Experience Of PHWR and LWR Fuels,” Paper
presented at the 14th Indian Nuclear Society Conference,
Kalpakkam, December 17-19, 2003, www.indian-nuclear-society.org.
in/conf/2003/8.pdf. In a PHWR at a burnup of 1,000 MWd/tHM, the
0.7 percent U-235 in natural uranium fuel is reduced to 0.6 percent
U-235, while fuel with a burnup of 7,000 MWd/tHM contains 0.2
percent uranium-235.
47. As of 2003, the Nuclear Fuel Complex at Hyderabad had
produced about 76 tons of depleted uranium fuel. Ibid.
48. The four reactors at Kaiga also have been designated as
military and may imply this site is to host another reprocessing
plant and unsafeguarded breeder reactor, similar to the
arrangement at Madras.
49. Ibid.
50. India plans a series of “FBR parks,” each of which will
have two to four FBRs, a dedicated reprocessing plant and a fuel
fabrication plant, including at Kalpakkam; T. S. Subramanian, “A
Milestone at Kalpakkam,” Frontline, November 6, 2004.
125
51. Design of Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, Indira Gandhi
Centre for Atomic Research, December 2003, www.igcar.ernet.in/
broucher/design.pdf. The plutonium content of the fuel is reported
to be 20.7 percent in the inner core and 27.7 percent in the outer
core, with approximately 91 percent of the total power generated
in the core; D. G. Roychowdhury, et al., “Thermal Hydraulic
Design of PFBR Core,” LMFR Core Thermohydraulics: Status and
Prospects, IAEA-TECDOC-1157, June 2000, www.iaea.org/inis/aws/
fnss/fulltext/1157_3.pdf.
52. We assume a core breeding ratio of 0.68 and an overall
breeding ratio of 1.05. Note that Japan’s Monju and the cancelled
U.S. Clinch River fast breeder reactors had core breeding ratios
of 0.6-0.75; S. Usami, et al., Reaction Rate Distribution Measurement
and the Core Performance Evaluation in the Prototype FBR Monju,
last updated July 5, 2005, aec.jst.go.jp/jicst/NC/tyoki/sakutei2004/
sakutei17/siryo41.pdf. For this range of core breeding ratios,
the PFBR would produce about 164-109 kg of weapons grade
plutonium. Preliminary results from MCNP calculations on
PFBR plutonium production support this range of plutonium
production. Alexander Glaser, private communication.
53. T. S. Subramanian, “A Milestone at Kalpakkam,”
Frontline, November 6-19, 2004, www.hinduonnet.com/line/l2123/
stories/20041119003210200.htm.
54. The spent fuel from the breeder would need to cool before
it could be reprocessed and the plutonium recycled, and so an
initial plutonium stock for two cores, about four tons in total, is
required for each breeder.
55. Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana, “Beyond Lahore: From
Transparency to Arms Control,” Economic and Political Weekly,
April 17-24, 1999; Zia Mian, A. H. Nayyar and M. V. Ramana,
“Making Weapons, Talking Peace: Resolving The Dilemma of
Nuclear Negotiations,” Economic and Political Weekly, July 17, 2004;
R. Rajaraman, “India-U.S. Deal and the Nuclear Ceiling,” The
Hindu, September 10, 2005; R. Rajaraman, “Nurturing the IndoUS Agreement” in The Debate on the Indo–US Nuclear Cooperation,
Delhi Policy Group and Bibliophile South Asia, 2006.
56. Matthew McKinzie, et al., “The Risks and Consequences
of Nuclear War in South Asia,” in Out of the Nuclear Shadow,
Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian, eds., Delhi: Lokayan and Rainbow
Publishers and London: Zed Books, 2001.
126
57. R. Rajaraman, “Save the Indo-US Agreement,” Hindustan
Times, November 5, 2005.
58. R. Rajaraman, “Cap the Nuclear Arsenal Now,” The Hindu,
January 25, 2005, R. Rajaraman, “Towards De-Nuclearisation of
South Asia,” paper presented at the 2nd Pugwash Workshop on
South Asian Security, Geneva, Switzerland, May 16-18, 2003.
127