DAE to commercialise uranium mines

Mumbai: To meet the shortage of uranium for the Indian nuclear power industry, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) said all uranium mines discovered and explored so far by the Atomic Minerals Division of the department be commercialised.

'All exploratory uranium mines of the department should be converted into commercial mines without any delay in order to boost the Indian nuclear power industry, which is currently running at 50 per cent capacity despite Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd, a PSU of the DAE, having achieved 95 per capacity since late 1990s,' said department spokesperson and head, public awareness division, SK Malhotra.

Both state and central governments should help carry out this commercialisation of the exploratory mines without further delay, he said.

'Even if the ores that are available from the existing mines in Jharkhand are processed in the upcoming mill at Turamdih as well as the existing mill at Jaduguda, the mismatch would only be reduced to some extent,' he said.

The department would do exploratory mining of 141,000 metres across the country for uranium during the Eleventh Five Year Plan and was looking for private partners, Malhotra said.

'Even if we succeed in getting some promising sites, we do not know how long it will take those exploratory mines to become commercial,' he added.

Already the department has established a resource of 100,000 tonnes of Uranium oxide, which could generate 10,000 Mw of electricity. But it has utilised only 45 per cent of established resource so far and the remaining 55 per cent had to be commercialised, he said.

Meanwhile, NPCIL officials, who are virtually frustrated with uranium mismatch, said, 'We have evolved into an industry which can, after giving profit to the government, deliver one reactor per year. We have reached a capacity factor of 95 per cent but have to run the plant at or less than 50 per cent capacity.'

Although the fact about the mismatch of fuel came to light during late 1980s and 1990s with Nuclear Power Corporations' ambitious projection of 10,000 Mw by 2000 and later 20,000 Mw by 2020, no appropriate action was taken to improve the situation, senior NPCIL officials said.

India is the only country which carries out mining and processing of uranium oxide and fabrication of fuel for its reactors from poor quality ore with Jaduguda (0.06 per cent), Turamdih (0.03 to 0.04 per cent), Narwapahar 0.05 percent purity.

It was when the present chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Anil Kakodkar, took over in late 2000 that the DAE began rejuvenating the Turamdih commercial mine in Jharkhand, which was closed in 1992 due to financial reasons.

The residential quarters of Turamdih mine, which were occupied by CRPF jawans, had to be vacated in 2001-2002 after a ten year gap after the mine was closed.

Former chairman of AEC PK Iyengar said the mismatch was predictable. Unfortunately, the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), which is a public sector undertaking of the DAE, could not take a bold decision and succumbed to pressure from some 'financial' group.

The cost of the commercialisation of the mine was the criteria which was taken seriously and not the mismatch of fuel, he said. 'If the Centre had taken some bold steps at that time, we would not be facing this crisis,' he added.

Attempts by earlier chairman, R Chidambaram, to get natural uranium from Kazakhstan also went futile due to international geopolitics, NPCIL official said.

Kakodkar revived the Turamdih mine in 2002 and decided to have a processing mine at Turamdih which was to be commissioned last year. It is expected to become operational soon as it was undergoing some technical problems.

The KPM project in Meghalaya contains 0.08 to 0.01 per cent ore while the newly explored uranium in Rajasthan was 1.65 per cent.

In many places in the world, the quality of the ore varies from 1.0 to 10 per cent, a DAE of