PM commissions reprocessing plant at Tarapur

 “The spent fuel reprocessing plant is a milestone in India’s three-stage nuclear programme,” Singh said in an address at Tarapur in the coastal belt of Thane district near here.

It is the second reprocessing plant at Tarapur. The other three operating reprocessing plants are at Trombay (60 tonne capacity), Tarapur and Kalpakkam (both 100 tonne capacity each) respectively. While the Trombay facility reprocesses spent fuel from research reactors, the plants at Tarapur and Kalpakkam process the oxide fuels from the indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs).

“Reprocessing is essential in the transition to the second stage of fast breeder reactors which we have begun, and in the subsequent third stage using thorium in advanced reactors,” he said while stating that reprocessing of spent fuel is the key to the country’s three-stage indigenous nuclear power programme.

Singh said India has come a long way since the first reprocessing of spent fuel in India in 1964 at Trombay.