Under the recent Indo-US nuclear deal India has drawn up a plan to place 14 out of its 22 commercial nuclear power reactors under safeguards, amounting to about two-thirds of current nuclear power generation as against two-fifths at present (Two reactors each at Tarapur, Rawatbhatta and Koodankulam built with US, Canadian and Russian assistance respectively are already under safeguards)

All future commercial power reactors will also be placed under international safeguards which

List of Reactors

¹This reactor is slated to be moved out of the BARC complex, which along with the research facilities at Kalpakkam will not be subject to safeguards under the purview of the recent nuclear deal with the US.

²Under the deal India has promised to phase out Cirus over the next five years. The reactor went critical in 1960 and is capable of producing up to 10kg of weapons-grade plutonium in its spent fuel annually. Although the reactor is not under IAEA safeguards, a 1956 Indo-Canadian agreement prohibits the use of plutonium produced in the reactor for non-peaceful purposes. However, the agreement includes no enforcement mechanism and India has interpreted the prohibition to exclude “peaceful nuclear explosions.” India used plutonium produced in the Cirus reactor for its 1974 nuclear test, causing Canada to cease all nuclear cooperation with India, including nuclear fuel shipments.

³Capable of producing up to 30kg of weapon grade plutonium each year. It is likely that most Indian nuclear warheads use plutonium extracted from this reaseach reactor.

⁴Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) uses indigenously developed mixed uranium-plutonium carbide fuel core.

⁵The Kamini reactor is fueled by U-233 (irradiated thorium) and is part of India's strategy to eventually use U-233 as the primary fuel for India’s nuclear program. The Kamini reactor is the only reactor in the world fueled by U-233.

BARC has announced plans to replace the aging Cirus and Druva reactors. A 100MW reactor based on the Dhruva design is very optimistically expected to become operational by 2010.

Another reactor design team at Trombay has completed a preliminary plan for building a new 500 megawatt electric (MWe) Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) that will burn mixed-oxide (MOX) and thorium fuel.

Why We Need Eight Unsafeguarded Commercial Reactors

The uranium fuel rods used in India's heavy-water nuclear power plants can be processed to extract plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. However, normally for electrical power production the uranium fuel remains in the reactor for three to four years, which produces plutonium of 60 percent or less Pu-239, 25 percent or more Pu-240, 10 percent or more Pu-241, and a few percent Pu-242. The Pu-240 has a high spontaneous rate of fission, and the amount of Pu-240 in weapons-grade plutonium generally does not exceed 6 percent, with the remaining 93 percent Pu-239. Higher concentrations of Pu-240 can result in pre-detonation of the weapon, significantly reducing yield and reliability.

Under normal conditions, plutonium extracted from commercial reactors is not desirable for use in nuclear weapons due to a low concentration of Pu-239. For the production of weapons-grade plutonium with lower Pu-240 concentrations, the fuel rods in a reactor have to be changed frequently, about every four months or less. Indian heavy water reactors do not have to be shut down in order to change fuel rods. So India has the option to harvest weapons-grade plutonium from those of its 8 commercial nuclear power plants not under safeguard, by changing some of the fuel rods.

The Nuclear treaty with the US mandates that all future commercial nuclear power plants will be subject to safeguards. In other words, to augment its supply of plutonium in the future India will need to construct dedicated military nuclear plants whose electrical output could not be utilized commercially, something that would drive up the cost of the plutonium exponentially.

A large part of the plutonium supply from the 8 commercial reactors not under safeguards will need to be diverted to India's fast breeder program which will initially be fueled by plutonium. While it is true that the plutonium fed into a fast breeder reactor can eventually be recovered, the process takes time. Indeed, it was for this reason that putting the fast breeder reactors under safeguards at this stage was unacceptable to India since it would have starved our nuclear weapons program of the quantum required to achieve a credible nuclear deterrence.

India's military weapon program requires Tritium for producing boosted fission and thermonuclear warheads. India extracts the Tritium from heavy water used in commercial PHWR.

Update

During the state visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, India and Russia signed an agreement on Friday, December 5, to build an additional four reactors for the Kudankulam nuclear power plant and construct two new nuclear plants in India.

In a separate deal, Russia agreed to supply $700 million worth of nuclear fuel to India.

French Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPRs)

Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and France's Areva singed a MOU on Wednesday, February 4, 2009, for construction of up to six new generation Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPRs) in western India.

Areva will initially supply two EPRs OF 1,650 mw each for nuclear plants that the company will be build near the village of Jaitapur in the western state of Maharastra on the Arabian Sea. Orders for an additional four reactors will be placed subsequently.

EPR reactors feature a leak proof design and four independent cooling systems for safety.

Areva and India's Atomic Energy Department signed a commercial agreement last December for the supply of 300 tons of uranium to be used in NPCIL nuclear reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

Ref:
http://www.npcil.nic.in/PlantsInOperation.asp
http://www.iht.com/getina/files/313158.html
http://cns.miis.edu/research/india/nuclear.htm