Kudankulam is a town in the Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu, India. It is situated 24 km north-east of Kanyakumari, 36 km from Nagercoil and about 106 km from Thiruvananthapuram. The small village has been the spot of attention for both National and International news agencies, due to the increasing protests from the locals due to the potential danger that the plant may cause to the village and neighboring places.
The Start
An Inter-Governmental Agreement on the project was signed on November 1988 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, for the construction of two reactors. The project remained in limbo for a decade due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. There were also objections from the United States, on the grounds that the agreement does not meet the 1992 terms of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Construction began only in September 2001 and the cost was estimated to be INR136.15 billion (US$3 billion).
Kudankulam now has a port which was commissioned on 14 Jan 2004 and all the light water reactor equipment are brought through this port. Prior to this, they were brought via Road, after lodging from Tuticorin Port, but this had risks of damage during transportation.
In 2008, negotiations on building four additional reactors at the site began. Though the capacity of these reactors has not been declared, it was expected that the capacity of each reactor will be 1200 MW or 1.2 GW. The new reactors would bring the total capacity of the power plant to 6800MW or 6.8 GW
Progress
The Unit I of the plant had dummy fuel loaded into it in April 2010, and the hot run of nuclear steam supply system was conducted in August 2011. After successful testing, the dummy fuel was removed in June 2012 and in October, nuclear fuel was loaded. The reactor was loaded with fuel assemblies containing about 80 tonnes of uranium oxide. Subsequently, a number of safety tests at the operating temperature and pressure were carried out. Unit I achieved 99.7% physical progress as on December 2012.
Technical and viability
Two 1 GW reactors of the VVER-1000 model are being constructed by the Nuclear Power corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Atomstroyexport. When completed they will become the largest nuclear power generation complex in India producing a cumulative 2 GW of electric power. Both units are water-cooled, water-moderated power reactors. The first was scheduled to start operation in December 2009 and the second one was scheduled for March 2010. Currently, the official projections put unit 1 into operation in May 2012, and unit 2 will go in July 2012.
Four more reactors are set to be added to this plant under a memorandum of intent signed in 2008.[15] A firm agreement on setting up two more reactors, has been postponed pending the ongoing talks on liability issues. Under an inter-government agreement signed in December 2008 Russia is to supply to India four third generation VVER-1200 reactors of 1170 MW.
The reactors have some advanced safety features like passive heat removal system, double containment, Core Catcher, and hydrogen re-combiner instead of conventional systems.
Safety Comments
Former Indian President
Dr. Abdul Kalam had expressed satisfaction about the safety of the Kudankulam Nuclear Plant after having detailed discussion with KNPP officials and inspecting the safety features of the plant.
Former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India Srinivasan said that one should never compare the Fukushima plant with Kudankulam and added "The Fukushima plant was built on a beachfront, but the Kudankulam was constructed on a solid terrain and that too keeping all the safety aspects in mind. Also, we are not in a tsunami prone area. The plants in Kudankulam have a double containment system which can withstand high pressure. At least Rs140 billion has been spent. If we don't operate the plant immediately, it will affect the economic stability of our country".
A center panel constituted by the Government of India, which did a survey of the safety features in the plant, said the Kudankulam reactors are the safest and fears of the people are not based on scientific principles. Dr. Muthunayagam, the panel's convener, also added that the protesters have asked for some documents which are not related to the safety of the reactor, hence he suspects the very nature of their questions. Nuclear scientist and principal scientific adviser to the federal Government of India Rajagopala Chidambaram has said “We have learnt lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident, particularly on the post-shutdown cooling system,” and also added Fukushima nuclear accident should not deter or inhibit India from pursuing a safe civil nuclear program.
Safety Regulations
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) satisfied itself that the plant is of proven design. Indian specialists visited Russia and had significant exchange of information from nuclear power plant designers. Indian engineers had completed licensing training process in either Balakova nuclear power plant (NPP) or Kalinin NPP.
The AERB and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and specialists from reputed academic institutions such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, the Boilers Board and the Central Electricity Authority have spent over 7,000 man-days in carrying out the safety review and inspection of the Kudankulam reactors.
These system-wise reviews were comprehensive. AERB used relevant documents from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and IAEA's peer reviews of VVER for safety assessment of these reactors.
These reactors belong to the Generation 3 + category (with more safety features than Generation 3) with a simpler and standardised design.
The Kudankulam site is located in the lowest seismic hazard zone in the country. The water level experienced at the site due to the December 26, 2004 tsunami, triggered by a 9.2 earthquake was 2.2 metres above the mean sea level. The safety-related buildings are located at higher elevation (SafetyDiesel Generators,9.3 metre) and belong to the highest seismic category and are closed with double sealed, water leak tight doors.
The reactors have redundant, diverse and thus reliable provisions needed to control nuclear reactions, to cool the fuel and to contain radioactive releases. They have in–built safety features to handle Station Black Out.
Besides fast acting control rods, the reactors also have a “quick boron injection system”, serving as a back-up to inject concentrated boric acid into the reactor coolant circuit in an emergency. Boron is an excellent neutron absorber.
The enriched uranium fuel is contained in Zirconium-Niobium tubes. It can retain the radioactivity generated during the operation of the reactor. The fuel tubes are located in the 22 cm thick Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) which weighs 350 tonnes. RPV is kept inside a one metre thick concrete vault.
The reactor has double containment, inner 1.2 metre-thick concrete wall lined on the inside with a 6 mm layer of steel and an outer 60 cm thick concrete wall. The annulus between the walls is kept at negative pressure so that if any radioactivity is released it cannot go out. Air carrying such activity will have to pass through filters before getting released through the stack. Multiple barriers and systems ensure that radioactivity is not released into the environment.
Its Passive Heat Removal System (PHRS) is capable of removing decay heat of reactor core to the outside atmosphere, during Station Black Out (SBO) condition lasting up to 24 hours. It can maintain hot shutdown condition of the reactor, thus, delaying the need for boron injection.
Located outside the reactor vessel, a core catcher in the form of a vessel weighing 101 tonnes and filled with specially developed compound (oxides of Fe, Al & Gd) is provided to retain solid and liquid fragments of the damaged core, parts of the reactor pressure vessel and reactor internals under severe accident conditions.
The presence of gadolinium (Gd) which is a strong neutron absorber ensures that the molten mass does not go critical. The vessel prevents the molten material from spreading beyond the limits of containment. The filler compound has been developed to have minimum gas release during dispersal and retention of core melt.Rat
The Controversy
The protesters are claiming that the officials are not providing enough documentation in concern with the safety measures that were taken in the plant. Either this could be a security concern or the government suspects a foreign intervention, thereby compromising the security of the plant.
What we forget is, Fukushima plant spread gloom; the Onagawa plant close to it, in contrast, shut down safely;
its gym served for three months as a shelter for those made homeless (Reuters, Oct 21). The plant showed that it is possible for nuclear facilities to withstand even the greatest shocks and to retain public trust.
A group of scientists, in their three-page petition, have expressed doubts "particularly with reference to possible sub-standard components" that were supplied to the plant. Recently, four faulty valves were detected in the first reactor unit of the plant; they were later replaced. Some Russian officials had also been arrested recently over alleged corruption in sourcing sub-standard materials from some Russian nuclear plants.
"Any exercise to assure oneself of the quality of components used will have to be done before the plant is commissioned. Once commissioned, the radioactive environment in sections of the plant will make it impossible to access and test some potentially-critical components," the petition said.(
The Full Petition)
The protesters base their objection on the "more than 1 million people live within the 30 km radius of the KKNPP which far exceeds the AERB (Atomic Energy Regulatory Board) stipulations. It is quite impossible to evacuate this many people quickly and efficiently in case of a nuclear disaster at Koodankulam", etc.
There are allegations from various agencies throughout India and officials from Home Ministry that several Christian organisations and Christian NGOs are behind the protest against KKNPP. The Church of South India, The Catholic Bishops Conference of India and the National Council of Churches openly oppose the KKNPP. It is also implicitly recognizable that officials in the Catholic Church of these regions too spread rumors through anti-nuclear videos from church premises and through Missionary Schools. The prime motives for opposing the Nuclear Reactor were allegedly multi-faceted. One of the allegations was that the project was meant to damage the Russian civil nuclear credibility and to make it impossible for Russia to recover costs of construction, and thereby, artificially creating a state of uncertainty for future foreign investments in India. Another was that it was meant to increase the inevitable dependability of India towards the US alone for future foreign investments.
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