Question

Essay on recent achievements of india's nuclear scientists

Answer 1

India has a largely indigenous nuclear power programme.The Indian government is committed to growing its nuclear power capacity as part of its massive infrastructure development programme.The government has set ambitious targets to grow nuclear capacity. At the start of 2018 six reactors were under construction in India, with a combined capacity of 4.4 GWe.Because India is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty due to its weapons programme, it was for 34 years largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant and materials, which hampered its development of civil nuclear energy until 2009.Due to earlier trade bans and lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium.Since 2010, a fundamental incompatibility between India’s civil liability law and international conventions limits foreign technology provision.

India in 2015 produced 1383 TWh of electricity, 1042 TWh (75%) of this from coal, 138 TWh (10%) from hydro, 68 TWh (5%) from natural gas, 48 TWh (3.5%) from solar and wind, 37 TWh (2.7%) from nuclear, 27 TWh from biofuels, and 23 TWh from oil. There were virtually no imports or exports of electricity in 2015, and about 19% of production was lost during transmission. Consumption in 2015 came to about 1027 TWha, or about 800 kWh per capita on average. Total installed capacity as of June 2017 was about 330 GWe, consisting of 220 GWe fossil fuels, 58 GWe renewables (including small hydro), 45 GWe large hydro, and less than 7 GWe nuclearb.

India's dependence on imported energy resources and the inconsistent reform of the energy sector are challenges to satisfying rising demand. The 2017 edition of BP’s Energy Outlook projected India’s energy consumption rising by 129% between 2015 and 2035. It predicts that the country’s energy mix will evolve very slowly to 2035, with fossil fuels accounting for 86% of demand in 2035, compared with a global average of 78% (down from 86% today).

There is an acute demand for more reliable power supplies. Whilst access to electricity is improving, over 20% of the population did not have access to electricity in 2014c.

The government's 12th five-year plan for 2012-17 targeted the addition of 94 GWe over the period, costing $247 billion. By 2032 the plan called for total installed capacity of 700 GWe to meet 7-9% GDP growth, with 63 GWe nuclear. The OECD’s International Energy Agency predicts that India will need some $1.6 trillion investment in power generation, transmission and distribution to 2035.

In March 2018, the government stated that nuclear capacity would fall well short of its 63 GWe target and that the total nuclear capacity is likely to be about 22.5 GWe by the year 2031d. 



Kudankulam nuclear power plant, one of India's newest

India has five electricity grids – Northern, Eastern, North-Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are interconnected to some extent, except the Southern grid. All are run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCI), which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines. In July 2012 the Northern grid failed with 35,669 MWe load in the early morning, and the following day it plus parts of two other grids failed again so that over 600 million people in 22 states were without power for up to a day.

A KPMG report in 2007 said that transmission and distribution (T&D) losses were worth more than $6 billion per year. A 2012 report costed the losses as $12.6 billion per year. A 2010 estimate shows big differences among states, with some very high, and a national average of 27% T&D loss, well above the target 15% set in 2001 when the average figure was 34%. Much of this was sttibuted to theft. Installed transmission capacity was only about 13% of generation capacity.

Since about 2010 India has made capacity additions and efficiency upgrades to its transmission grid to reduce technical losses getting power to load centres. In 2009, the National Load Dispatch Centre began supervising regional load dispatch centres, scheduling and dispatching electricity, and monitoring operations of the national grid. By the end of 2013, the country's five regional grids were interconnected for synchronous operation with greater efficiency. India has also more than doubled the extent and capacity of high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) lines since 2002, with fewer losses over long distances than AC lines.

India’s priority is economic growth and to alleviate poverty. The importance of coal means that CO2 emission reduction is not a high priority, and the government has declined to set targets ahead of the 21st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change to be held in Paris in 2015. The environment minister in September 2014 said it would be 30 years before India would be likely to see a decrease in CO2emissions.
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