Advanced Nuclear Power Technologies R B Grover DAE Homi Bhabha Chair 8th Nuclear Energy Conclave 30th September, 2016, New Delhi

Technology evolution is a must Scientists have to continue to play with ideas and develop new reactor concepts, Spirit and curiosity present in the little school bus should never be dead. Society and stakeholders, of course will subject new technologies to Darwinian Selection process. A selection process for an energy system has to be based on its inherent strengths. However, additional factors like non-pro lobbyists, radio phobia, business interests always come into play. One cannot wish them away. Factors that will enable a concept to survive are Safety Security Sustainability (including economics).

Economics of electricity generation: aspects to be considered Capital cost of setting up of power plants Generation costs Cost of capital Cost of fuel O & M Cost External costs Net energy gain: Expressed in terms of the ratio energy gain on invested

External costs External costs denote the costs that the party responsible for generating emissions does not account for and consequently do not pay for. External costs are paid in terms of health effects (deaths, serious illness, minor illness) by those who are exposed to emissions. Studied extensively under the project ExternE and more recently under several other projects. Markandeya A and Wilkinson P, (2007), “Electricity generation and health”, Lancet; 370;979-90.

Net Energy Gain: Ratio of energy returned and invested (EROI) Irrespective of the carrier used there has to be a net energy gain for the society. Methodologies for evaluation are still evolving and so one cannot compare data from any two different researchers; Addition of primary energy and electrical energy, and System boundary used. Coal, nuclear and hydro have very high value of EROI. Biomass has a very low value. Solar Concentrated solar has higher value than photovoltaic, Between photovoltaic, CdTe has higher value than silicon based technologies. As technologies evolve, value of EROI will evolve

In conclusion From the spread of the value of EROI of various technologies, one can infer that for the grid to have a high EROI, continued use of coal is necessary until contribution from clean sources such as nuclear and renewables (including storage to address the issue of intermittency) can be increased in a manner that overall EROI remains high. Nuclear is important not only from the point of environmental sustainability, but also from an economic standpoint as it has high EROI and low external costs. Fission based nuclear reactors have been around since the middle of the previous century, have been deployed on large enough scale for providing base-load electricity and have been subjected to much deeper scrutiny with regard to safety than any other electricity generating technology. Nuclear fuel has high energy density; nuclear power plants have large enough EROI, lowest external costs, low GHG emissions and competitive generation costs. As electricity usage increases, it is desirable to attach monetary value to all parameters influencing society so that all energy generating technologies are treated on a level playing field.

To meet the challenge posed by the 2o objective defined in last year’s Paris climate agreement, nuclear should be deployed in a timely manner and to full potential Thank You