The 5th of December 2009 passed by without much of a notice here in India. However it was a day that was marked by an important milestone in the 2nd stage of India’s 3 Stage Nuclear programme. On that day, the core of India’s Prototype Fast Breeder Nuclear Reactor was lowered into its safety vessel. Though it would use U-238 to generate Pu-239, the eventual aim to shift to the Thorium cycle as India has the 2nd largest Thorium reserves in the world.
Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited [BHAVINI] was responsible for the fabrication of the Core after which it was transported & lowered in to the Safety Vessel, manufactured by Larsen & Toubro [L&T].
Did not catch the news being reported on any Indian News channel – a really sad reflection of priorities of our media houses. Posting a video of the Core being transported & lowered into the Safety vessel.
Duration: 5 minutes [No Audio]
One of the better News articles reporting that event: Core vessel installed at Kalpakkam fast breeder reactor news
If you are unable to watch the video due to some reason, you may check out some of the pictures of the whole process. A welcome change has been the uploading of hi-res picture by our GoI agencies [though following an absolutely non-uniform file naming scheme – made batch download is a b1atch ;)].
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For further reading
India’s Three Stage Nuclear Programme
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor [India]
Godspeed