Research reactor at Barc to shut down in Dec 2010

Cirus, the 40 mw research reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), will be shut down by December 2010 and decommissioned as per the separation plan under the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

Established 49 years ago, Cirus was refurbished in 2005 for research work and production of medical radioisotopes. It has been involved in many strategic programmes. “It will be closed down completely by the end of December 2010 and subsequently decommissioned,” Barc director Srikumar Banerjee said.

Under the separation plan, India had committed to shut down Cirus and shift the French-supplied fuel core of 1-MW Apsara reactor to a new research facility outside the strategic Barc complex.

Apsara, however, is being modified into a 2 mw reactor using indigenous low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and its new incarnation will become operational by 2012 to back up the indigenous 100 mw research reactor Dhruva.

Meanwhile, work is on to upgrade Barc and modify Dhruva to meet the demands for medical radioisotopes in Indian hospitals as there is a global shortage of the fission Molybdenium-99 radioisiotope (fission Moly99), the Barc director said.

Barc has also plans to build a new high flux research reactor of 100 mw at its second complex in Vizag in Andhra Pradesh which is likely to make use of external neutron source with the help of Accelerator Driven subcritical system (ADSS) to come up in the new complex, Banerjee said.