Post- Fukushima the government has decided to factor in additional safety measures for the proposed Evolutionary Power Reactor ( EPRs), to be fabricated by the French nuclear major Areva at Jaitapur. The Finnish experience in constructing such reactors have been far from smooth as Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh was told during his recent visit to the Nordic country to study Areva's Finnish project. Therefore a valid question probably arises as to what is in store for India.
The Indian atomic energy establishment has emphasised that there is nothing unsafe or untried about the EPR design. They are, as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Srikumar Bannerji said to an interactive session at the National Physical Laboratory in Delhi on Friday, by definition " evolutionary" and represented incremental improvements of existing designs.
Areva
The anger of activists against the Jaitapur nuclear power plant at a recent Mumbai public trial is just one part of the problem.
India wants to learn from the experience of other EPRs globally, particularly in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, but none of the projects has started generating power yet. Currently four EPR units are under construction. Read the full report here.
Source: by Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, Power-Gen World.com.
