India will have four 500 MW fast breeder reactors (FBRs) by 2020 and pre-project activities of these have been initiated, the Director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Energy Baldev Raj said here on Wednesday.
The Planning Commission has already cleared four more 500 MW FBRs each costing around Rs 3,100 crores and two of the reactors will be set up at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu along with the existing Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and the under- construction Prototype Fast Breeder reactor (PFBR), Raj told to media persons on the sidelines of ongoing International Symposium on Energy Related Materials.
The Department of Atomic Energy is in process of looking for a site for the two new reactors. The pre-project activities of these FBRs are already on and the construction of these would begin in 2014, Raj said.
The FBTR is working very well for the last 22 years and PFBR is scheduled to reach criticality in 2010, he said.
"Since the PFBR will be ready by 2010, only after gaining some operational experience of the new type of reactor, we will begin construction of the four units by 2014," he said.
Atomic Energy Department is also in the process of putting up an integrated fuel cycle facility---a reprocessing unit of the irradiated fuel during the 11th five year plan.
Asked whether DAE has stock-piled enough plutonium for these four reactors in addition to the upcoming PFBR, Raj said "we have enough plutonium already to meet these needs."
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