POWER September 2011 - 12

The intensity of the blast destroyed property within a 3-kilometer
radius, and damages have been estimated at between €1 billion
and €3 billion ($1.42 billion to $4.27 billion). Three staff members
were injured, but there were no deaths at the plant. State broadcaster
CyBC reported that the exact cause of the fire has yet to be
determined, but the government had ruled out sabotage.
The military-based stored munitions had been seized by Cyprus
from a Russian-owned, Cypriot-flagged ship, Monchegorsk,
in 2009. The U.S., UK, and France alleged that the ship had been
chartered by Iran to relay weapons to Syria. Cyprus media say
authorities knew the munitions were not being stored safely, but
failed to take precautions.
India's Indigenous Nuclear Program
Advances While U.S.-India Trade Stalls
Since a landmark 2008 deal that lifted global sanctions and allowed
countries to conduct nuclear trade with India, the nation
struggling to keep up with domestic power demand has signed
deals with the U.S., France, Russia, Canada, Mongolia, Kazakhstan,
Argentina, Namibia, and, in August, South Korea, for construction
of large nuclear power plants (in technical collaboration
with foreign vendors) or for nuclear fuel.
But India is a country that for more than three decades was
largely excluded from trade in nuclear plant materials, so it has
long been developing a unique nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its
massive reserves of thorium to ensure that nuclear power remains
part of its power profile. The first step of the three-stage
program involves building indigenously engineered pressurized
heavy water reactors (PHWRs) and light water reactors to produce
plutonium. The second stage uses fast-neutron reactors fueled by
plutonium to breed uranium-233 (U-233) from thorium. In the
third stage, using wholly indigenous technology, the country will
use advanced heavy water reactors fueled with U-233 obtained
by the irradiation of thorium in PHWRs and fast reactors.
Staking its future economic prosperity on the success of this program,
the country expects to have 20 GW of nuclear capacity online
by 2020 (up from the current 4.4 GW) and 63 GW by 2032. And it
is making progress. In July, the state-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of
India Ltd. poured concrete for two indigenously developed 700-MW
PHWRs at the Rajasthan Atomic Power project at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan
state. When complete in 2017, as expected, the reactors will join
two other 700-MW PHWRs under construction at Kakrapar in Gujarat.
4. Pushing ahead. Seeking to alleviate chronic power shortages,
India is making strides toward a three-step nuclear power plan, which
consists of building several indigenously designed reactors. It has also
struck deals with France and Russia for new reactors, though a trade
deal with the U.S. has stalled for various reasons. The first of two new
Russian-built VVER reactors at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant,
shown here, is scheduled to come online in December. Courtesy: Institute
Hydroproject
Indian nuclear reactor technologies are on par with international
standards, but the foreign agreements were mainly to " facilitate
a faster growth " of the nuclear power program, Minister
of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V. Narayanasamy
told Lok Sabha (the lower house of parliament) in July.
Deals included one with Russia for two new VVERs in Tamil Nadu,
where Atomstroyexport is already building two units (Figure 4),
and an agreement for two EPRs-the first of a series of six-at
Jaitapur in Maharashtra.
Conspicuously, no such transactions have taken place between
the U.S. and India-even though a civil nuclear agreement,
signed with much fanfare in 2005 by President George W. Bush
and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sought to open up Asia's
third-largest economy's $150 billion nuclear energy market. In
July, it was widely reported that nuclear trade between the two
countries had stalled because of politically complicated legislative
and regulatory hurdles. One issue that has been repeatedly
revisited is that the U.S. wants India to tighten laws shielding
equipment makers from liability in case of nuclear accidents.
Industry experts say the lack of trade also stems from India's
waning zeal for nuclear power that has arisen from fervent-and
sometimes violent-public opposition to new plants, as with the
Jaitapur EPRs. Conditions imposed by India's parliament also make
trade easier with state-owned nuclear entities-as opposed to privately
owned firms like General Electric and Westinghouse, Toshiba's
U.S. arm. Among other concerns are that New Delhi has not
guarded against technology transfer, as is required by U.S. law.
Finally, before U.S. and French reactors can be built, India
must secure a nuclear cooperation deal with Japan because
Japan holds the licenses for critical components that make up
those reactors. Japan and India have been engaged in negotiations,
but the nation recently crippled by the Fukushima crisis
has asked India to make a long list of reassurances, which Indian
negotiators reportedly find " unrealistic. "
Spanish Power Tower Supplies 24 Hours
of Electricity
In Spain this June, a new 19.9-MW concentrated solar power (CSP)
tower in Fuentes de Andalucía, Seville, reached the unprecedented
milestone of storing thermal energy to its fullest capacity and supply
power for an uninterrupted 24-hour period.
Torresol Energy's Gemasolar solar tower, which started up in
April, comprises 2,650 heliostats on 185 hectares (457 acres)-
all facing the top of a 140-meter (459-foot) tower, concentrating
solar radiation at a ratio of 1,000:1 (Figure 5).
The plant is unique in the CSP sector because it is the only
commercial-scale solar tower to combine central tower receiver
and molten salt heat storage technology-a mode of thermal
storage used more prevalently in parabolic trough CSP technology.
At Gemasolar, the tower receiver is able to absorb 95% of
the radiation from the sun's spectrum and transmit this energy to
the molten salt compound that circulates within the receiver and
heats steam to operate a power-generating turbine. The system is
capable of 15 hours of electricity production without solar radiation,
helping overcome energy fluctuations.
Torresol opted to put molten salt technology in the solar tower
because it enables the tower to more easily reach a much higher
operating temperature (of more than 500C/932F). " The molten
salts . . . make it possible to generate hotter steam at higher
pressures, which significantly boosts the plant's efficiency, " the
company said. In the last weeks of June, " the high performance
of the installations coincided with several days of excellent solar
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