The Indo-U.S nuclear deal does not seem to be going anywhere. Stymied by opposition from the left, the Government seems set to miss its June date with the IAEA to negotiate a set of India-specific safeguards for the so called civilian list. Indeed, efforts are now underway to tap non-Nuclear Supplier Group (non-NSG) countries for natural uranium. Meanwhile, the U.S continues to push for the civilian nuclear deal. Recent comments made by the U.S ambassador suggest that Washington is still quite keen to wrap the Indo-U.S nuclear accord. Of course key officials on the U.S side continue to prod India by citing congressional procedural time frames and the importance of going to the IAEA this June. However, as mentioned above that does not seem to be happening, primarily on account of opposition from the left.

So where does this leave the prospects for nuclear power generation in India? The IAEA’s “red book,” classifies India’s natural uranium holdings as consisting of 54,636 tons of “reasonably assured resources” (RAR); 25,245 tons in estimated additional resources (EAR-Category I [in situ resources]); 15,488 tons in undiscovered conventional resources (EAR-Category II); and, finally, 17,000 tons in speculative resources (SR), for a grand total of 112,369 tons of uranium reserves without any assigned cost ranges. If our attention is restricted to those reserves that are assumed to be recoverable with a high degree of confidence, essentially the RAR and EAR-I categories, then, India’s stock of natural uranium would total 79,881 tons, close to the figure routinely cited in DAE publications. Other international sources, such as the World Energy Council, the World Information Service on Energy (WISE) Uranium Project, and the IAEA’s own surveys of India’s nuclear industry generally agree with this estimate.

The figure mentioned above is sufficient to fuel a fleet of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) with a total capacity of 10,000 MW. However, to look beyond this figure, India needs either international co-operation or the successful completion of India’s three stage programme that envisions the large scale utilization of the country’s significant thorium resources. Unfortunately, the latter continues to be far into the future whereas India’s power requirements are clear and present.

Indian nuclear managers are fully cognizant of the fact, that as their new indigenously built PHWRs come on line, the demand for fuel will only increase, further widening the deficit caused by the constraints in milling capacity (and, to the degree relevant, mining capacity as well).

There are reports that the government feels that it is no longer longer prudent to wait for the deal and the subsequent NSG approval which is concomitant on the former. It has been reported that the government has moved ahead on building bridges with key non-NSG Uranium suppliers including Namibia, Niger and Uzbekistan. Both Namibia and Niger have huge reserves of uranium. In fact, Namibia has around 10 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves and these could be easily tapped by India to fuel its nuclear power programme. According to the reports alluded to above , the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will soon discuss cooperation between Indian and Namibian utilities for uranium mining and its shipment back to the country. Indeed an MoU which is being finalised between India and Namibia for the mining sector could provide the basic framework for cooperation in uranium as well. As far as Niger is concerned, an Indian company, Taurian Resources was awarded rights for uranium exploration in a few blocks in that country, last year itself. Co-operation between DAE and this company seems likely.

In the midst of all this, it must be kept in mind that the recent fall in PLFs experienced by NPCIL’s existing PHWRs has nothing to do with the level of uranium resources in the country. The current situation is on account of a mismatch between fuel demand and supply, and is not meant to be alleviated through the import of Uranium. It must be understood by readers that fuel for reactors undergoes several stages of processing and fabrication before it is ready to be loaded .Thus even though a new milling unit was commissioned at Turamdih last year , it will take sometime before the benefits of the same kick in. This is on account of the fact that the ore processed from Turamdih will have to go through various stages of fabrication at the Nuclear fuel complex at Hyderabad before it is ready for use and it will be sometime before this new mine and processing unit is fully integrated into the fuel loop, as it were. In any case NPCIL feels that the situation will be remedied in the next 6-8 months.

Uranium imports whether under the auspices of the NSG or not, are meant for future capacity, situated at coastal locations. When the deal seemed likely, these coastal sites were actually identified for locating Pressurized Water reactors (PWRs), each having a minimum capacity of 1000 MWe. To put this in perspective India’s new generation indigenous PHWRs will have a capacity rating of only 700 MWe. Thus the PWR route was being seen as a way to augment base-load capacity quickly and in relatively less space than equivalent coal-fired capacity. A single coastal site could host up to eight PWRs. However, PWRs use low enriched uranium and therefore merely importing natural uranium would not suffice. Indeed, the deal was important because it would have allowed India to source “enriched uranium” from overseas. Now, the fact is, India has no enrichment facility on the civilian list. So either policy makers will have to take a decision to set up new enrichment facilities or these sites will have to be down-rated to serve as hosts for indigenous PHWRs. Clearly some tough choices lay ahead for the Indian nuclear planner.