Nuclear power programme

2 Sep 2026 · 13 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

The three-stage programme

Homi J. Bhabha drew the programme as three stages, each one making the fuel the next would run on. It is a sequence and not a menu, so a delay in one stage postpones the stage after it by as long again.

• The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) runs the programme, and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) designs the reactors.

The Indian Express, 4 Sep 2026: Nuclear scientist's energy pitch: Why India needs transition to thorium-based fuel? (opens in a new tab)

13 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

Pressurised heavy water reactors

Stage 1 is the fleet India actually operates, and it runs on uranium as it comes out of the ground. Almost everything now under construction is the same design in a larger version.

• A pressurised heavy water reactor (PHWR) is the Stage 1 design, fuelled by natural uranium with heavy water as both moderator and coolant.
• Ten 700 MW PHWRs are to take installed nuclear capacity to about 22,480 MW by 2031-32.
• Design changes after Fukushima, late Russian supplies at Kudankulam and difficult soil at Gorakhpur held the expansion up for decades.

PIB, 13 Aug 2026: PFBR criticality and status of India's reactor fleet (opens in a new tab)

13 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor

Stage 2 opened at Kalpakkam in April 2026, about two decades after it was meant to, with a reactor India built almost entirely itself. Its engineering difficulty is its coolant: liquid sodium carries heat superbly and is completely opaque, so the machine cannot be inspected by eye.

• The Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) reached first criticality on 6 April 2026, confirmed in a Rajya Sabha reply in August.
• It runs on MOX fuel and is cooled by liquid sodium.
• Its blanket of uranium-238 absorbs neutrons and becomes fissile plutonium-239.
• About 90 per cent Indian built, it was commissioned with a robot and ultrasonic imaging that see through the sodium.

PIB, 13 Aug 2026: PFBR criticality and status of India's reactor fleet (opens in a new tab)

2 Sep 2026 · Prelims and Mains

Thorium

India's uranium reserves are modest and its thorium is large, much of it in the monazite of the coastal sands, which is why the programme ends where it does. The obstacle is the difference between fissile and fertile material: thorium is the second kind, and a reactor has to make a fuel of it first.

• Thorium-232 absorbs a neutron and decays through protactinium-233 into fissile uranium-233.
• Anil Kakodkar, a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, urged thorium bearing fuel in the existing PHWRs now, rather than waiting on the breeders for uranium-233.
• Thorium absorbs neutrons more strongly than uranium, so the fuel needs high burn-up if it is not to raise uranium use and cost.

See also: Monazite and the beach sands

The Indian Express, 4 Sep 2026: Nuclear scientist's energy pitch: Why India needs transition to thorium-based fuel? (opens in a new tab)

15 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

Small modular reactors

A small modular reactor is built in a factory and assembled on site, which is meant to take years and capital out of a technology that has been short of neither. India is designing three at once, and they are not variations on one another.

• The Prime Minister said five indigenous SMRs will be running by 2033.
• BSMR-200 of 220 MWe and SMR-55 of 55 MWe are pressurised water reactors for Tarapur.
• A high temperature gas cooled reactor of up to 5 MWth at BARC Visakhapatnam is to make hydrogen by the copper-chlorine cycle.

PIB, 15 Aug 2026: Small Modular Reactors, the SHANTI Act and the 100 GW goal (opens in a new tab)

18 Aug 2026 · 15 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

The SHANTI Act

The law that let private companies into nuclear power also settled who pays if a plant fails, and that second half of it is now before the Supreme Court. A cap on liability is what makes the risk insurable, which is the argument for it and, to the petitioners, the argument against.

• The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025, notified on 21 December 2025, lets private companies into nuclear power under licence.
• The same Act gave the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) statutory status and set graded liability in line with international conventions.
• It caps the government's residual liability at 300 million Special Drawing Rights and an operator's at ₹3,000 crore, and exempts equipment suppliers altogether.
• The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the AERB on a challenge to the caps.
• It asked whether a statutory cap can stop a constitutional court awarding victims fair compensation.
• Petitioners set the caps against the estimated costs of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The Hindu, 18 Aug 2026: Supreme Court questions nuclear liability caps in the SHANTI Act (opens in a new tab) · PIB, 15 Aug 2026: Small Modular Reactors, the SHANTI Act and the 100 GW goal (opens in a new tab)

15 Aug 2026 · Prelims and Mains

The Nuclear Energy Mission

Everything above is aimed at a single number, and it is more than ten times the capacity running today. Two decades is not long for a technology whose last expansion slipped by that much.

• The Nuclear Energy Mission sets a target of 100 GWe by 2047.
• About half of that is expected from indigenous PHWRs, a fleet heading towards 50 to 60 GW.
• Reaching it needs private and foreign capital, which is why the liability terms decide the pace.

PIB, 15 Aug 2026: Small Modular Reactors, the SHANTI Act and the 100 GW goal (opens in a new tab)