KAPS officials claimed nobody was exposed to radiation and a team was working to find out what caused it. This is not the first time a leak has been reported in KAPS. In August 2011, seven workers were said to have been exposed to radiation while they working in a spent fuel transfer duct (SFTD) tunnel.
As the world observes the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, closer home a minor leak was reported from one of the two units of Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) near Vyara district in South Gujarat. According to reports, the 220 megawatt (MW) power plant at KAPS automatically shut down after a heavy water leak was detected in the primary heat transport (PHT) system of the plant on Friday morning.
KAPS officials claimed nobody was exposed to radiation and a team was working to find out what caused it. This is not the first time a leak has been reported in KAPS. In August 2011, seven workers were said to have been exposed to radiation while they working in a spent fuel transfer duct (SFTD) tunnel.
Asked about a contingency plan in case of a nuclear disaster, KAPS site director LK Jain said the design of the station as well as security measures in place were such that there was no chance of a radiation leak.
Interestingly, just after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, GSDMA had commissioned a study of the vicinity of KAPS and sought an emergency evacuation plan from IIMA professor Debjit Roy and his students.
The IIMA team had come up with a plan that would help speedy evacuation of people around the atomic power plant in case of emergency. According to the study, people in the vicinity of the plant need to be evacuated within three hours. It stated that the emergency planning zone around KAPS had been calculated as 16 km radius around the main plant. The team had suggested formation of first safety points at each village around the site where necessary health support could be provided.
The latest leak
Officials called the leak detected on Friday a minor one and added that other systems in the plant were functioning as usual.
“According to the design, the power plant automatically shuts down in the event of a technical error — which was the case this time too. Nobody has been exposed to radiation and radiological conditions inside and outside the plant are stable,” said Jain.
He said the cause of the leakage was still being ascertained and power would be restored in KAPS 1 only after the issue was sorted out. “It is difficult to say exactly when power will be restored in the plant,” he added.
Sources said a team from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) head office in Mumbai and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) will also visit Kakrapar for investigation.
“A team is expected to visit the plant within a week to find out if the error was human or technical. A departmental probe has already been initiated and statements of those on duty when the leakage took place have been recorded by plant officials,” said a top official.
Meanwhile, Surat district collector Dr Rajendra Kumar urged people to ignore rumours saying the situation was completely under control and there was nothing to worry about.
How and where the leak happened
In a nuclear power reactor, the energy released is used as heat to make steam that generates electricity. Water in the pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) is kept at a temperature of over 300°C and under pressure in the primary cooling or heat transfer circuit. The secondary circuit is under less pressure and the water here boils in heat exchangers that generate steam. The steam drives a turbine to produce electricity, and is then condensed and returned to the heat exchangers in contact with the primary circuit. On Friday, the leakage took place in a system that was transferring heat from the primary to the secondary unit.
KAPS 2 regularly maintained
KAPS has two PHWR power plants—KAPS 1 and KAPS 2. Currently, KAPS 2 has been shut down for maintenance work.
The plant
KAPS 1 started operations in May 1993 and KAPS 2 in September 1995. Both plants have a capacity of 220 MW.
Two new units— KAPS 3 and KAPS 4 — are being developed with a capacity of 700 MW each
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