Indian Advances in Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor Engineering

Growing concern regarding environmental issues; local pollutions and climate changes threatening sustainability nuclear energy is a preferred option for base load electricity in India. Nuclear energy can provide sustainable energy over centuries with the available uranium and thorium resources. A special mention needs to be made for Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) with closed fuel cycle as an efficient sustainable system for the effective utilization of uranium (>90 %) with significantly reduced high level radioactive waste and of less toxicity to be managed. FBR can also be designed to incinerate high level nuclear wastes arising from the reprocessing of spent fuel from thermal nuclear reactors.