2.4.09

TAPS celebrates 40 yrs of power generation

Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Anil Kakodkar said an inadequate uranium supply had made the task of maintaining the pace of the nuclear power generation programme a very challenging task. “There has been a mismatch. Initially, we had plenty of uranium but no processing facilities. But today the situation is the opposite. Slowly there are signs of upward trends in uranium supply from domestic and foreign resources,’’ he said, adding that a fresh stock of uranium from Russia had already arrived. He said techno-commercial offers from Russia and France are expected by June. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has vowed to generate 20,000 MW of nuclear power by the year 2020 with its first 10,000 MW phase projected to be in place by early next decade. He said that power plants being built in Kudankulam (Karnataka) and Jaitapur in Maharashtra had already received techno-commercial offers from Russian and French companies respectively. Kakodkar was interacting with the media after a programme held to commemorate the completion of 40 years of power generation by the Tarapur Atomic Power Stations’ (TAPS) first and second units, which were built by a team of nuclear scientists led by Dr Homi Bhabha in the late sixties. According to Kakodkar and AEC member M R Shrinivasan, Tarapur’s quality of power generation had earned the plant recognition as the world’s longest-serving civilian commercial power generation reactor.

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