ITER & India

ITER stands for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The project will aim to demonstrate the technological feasibility of nuclear fusion reactions and its deployment in the power generation sector.

India applied for membership in early 2005, and later that year, in October, its membership was approved by an inspection committee that visited the Institute of Plasma Research (IPR) in Ahmedabad. The group evaluated India’s ability to contribute meaningfully to the software and hardware requirements of ITER.

India’s foray into nuclear physics is not new; ever since the Pokhran test in 1998, the country has been constantly on the forefront of research in the nuclear sciences. Two important reasons drive R&D in the country in this direction.

The first is that the world’s largest reserves of thorium are located in India, with an estimated 650,000 tonnes remaining. Thorium is an important nuclear fuel and yields much more energy during the nuclear fission process than does uranium.

The second reason is, indirectly, the Indian education system, which encourages more science than technology amongst students. Consequently, the nation is a powerhouse for verifying, processing and interpreting second-hand information as can be obtained from CERN in Europe and Fermilab in the USA.

The ITER is scheduled to go online in 2012, and as we approach that date, its significance is gaining in the country because of the opposition the government has met with in setting up more fission reactors around the country. The arguments of the public are justified, but that doesn’t mean we are in a position to abandon the nuclear program.

Like all other sources of energy, there are problems, and the way to deal with these problems is not to brush them aside especially when the solutions can go a long way in resolving the energy crisis that threatens to cripple the nation. If we don’t switch to alternative sources of energy soon enough, fossil fuels will contribute as much as 60% to our energy source, and that is obviously unaffordable.

If the ITER becomes successful – and the chances are great that it will – then India’s full partnership with the program will translate into reduced costs when it comes to setting up nuclear fusion reactors. We need to give it some time, say, until 2016, for the technology to become fully deployable as a safe solution.

The ITER is not the only super-project that India is currently involved in. In Theni, about 500 km from here, a massive cavern is being excavated in the Bodi Hills to situate India’s first particle physics observatory. Called the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO), it will house the world’s largest neutrino detector that will study neutrinos coming from outer space as well as receive particles from the LHC at CERN for further study. The investment in the project is somewhere around Rs. 1,250 crore, and is expected to start functioning in 2012.

The national investment in R&D in India is currently 1.9% of the GDP. This translates to the faith the Indian government has begun to express in the scientific community. Right now, it does look like we are at a crossroads, where we must decide immediately to switch from nuclear fission reactors to solar power generators, but that’s not the end of the road.

Yes, renewable energy can be harnessed, but our research on that front is minimal, if not negligible. We can set up local grids that produce power and then feed it into the national grid at a feed-in tariff provided by the government, and that way, we can gradually reduce the load on the central grid.

At some point of time, we even might be able to define future growth rates based on just solar or wind power. However, nuclear fusion technology and the capabilities it purchases for growth and prosperity cannot be beat any time soon, and India’s emergence as a particle physics superpower is tied in to that goal.