Three broad types of nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
| Photo Credit: A. Vargas/IAEA 

While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman singled out small nuclear reactors for special mention in her Budget speech, these devices have been gaining favour around the world as countries have been faced with roadblocks to utilising renewable energy better and found fossil fuels harder to remove from the power generation mix.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are miniaturised versions of large nuclear power plants. According to R. Srikanth, Dean of the School of Natural Sciences & Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, they promise to be safer by virtue of having fewer operating parts and more safety features.

Large nuclear power generation facilities remain an important source of power in many countries, but many of them — including most in India — have been operationalised only after enormous time and cost overruns. Renewable sources of energy are currently beset by insufficient energy storage options. The processing capacity for many of the minerals required to manufacture the components of batteries and other electrified infrastructure has also been cornered by China.

With increasing electrification, especially in the transportation sector, the demand for continuous power generation has also increased, keeping fossil-fuel based power generation facilities relevant.

SMRs have emerged as another option in this milieu to complement existing power generation facilities, including nuclear ones. Dr. Srikanth said research on SMRs to be used in India is currently underway at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai.

The ‘Bharat Small Reactor’ is related to SMRs but is also different. At the Madras Atomic Power Station in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India has been operating two nuclear power facilities of 220 MW each for nearly 40 years. One of these reactors is currently undergoing repairs. The other is to become the first Bharat Small Reactor (BSR).

According to Dr. Srikanth, this reactor will be re-engineered to incorporate additional safety features. A reactor with output lower than 300 MW is considered ‘small’. The purpose of this exercise is to turn this “proven” reactor into a small nuclear power facility.

If it is validated, Dr. Srikanth said, similar BSRs are planned to be set up closer to their sites of consumption, especially facilities like steelmaking that require captive power generation and are also in desperate need of decarbonising.