Tapping thorium

Uranium reserves will not last. Turn to thorium and evolve the needed technology through necessary research.

This was the argument that India’s atomic energy research commission (AERC) chairman Srikumar Banerjee proffered at an international conference on access to civil nuclear technology in Paris on Monday. It makes sense because India has the largest thorium reserves in the world.

What Mukherjee is pleading for is international collaboration to utilise thorium to generate nuclear power. At present, nuclear yields from thorium are lower and, therefore, inefficient compared to uranium. Greater research could help improve the nuclear power yields from thorium.

Critics would be tempted to view the nuclear chief’s statement as a confession of Indian scientists’ failure to take advantage of indigenous thorium reserves.

This would be a harsh interpretation of the issue. Indian scientists have been working on the thorium route for decades now and it is true that they have managed to achieve limited success.

It would possible to argue that if India had achieved a breakthrough it would not have had to sign the civil nuclear agreement with the US and other countries and get the green signal from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to access nuclear technology.  But then the policymakers did not have the political will to press with it and allocate the funds needed for research and development (R&D) to make the breakthrough.

In a way, even this argument is flawed. Even if India had achieved success on the thorium front, it would not have been easy to ignore international pressures in the nuclear area because this is not just a technological issue.

There are strategic implications. As a matter of fact, by seeking international collaboration to work on ways of tapping thorium to generate nuclear power, India could become a lead player because it already has the R&D base. It will be better then if India takes the lead in research on the use of thorium and sets up an international centre for the purpose. 

This would also inspire greater confidence in the international community that India means to be transparent in this business and its declarations about its peaceful intentions are not mere rhetorical flourishes.