New Delhi: Even as US and India take baby-steps towards forging a strategic nuclear partnership, India's fast-breeder nuclear reactor becomes a crucial point of difference between the two nations.
But what is this fast-breeder programme?
The fast-breeder reactor forms the second stage of India's ambitious three-stage nuclear power programme.
The fast-breeder reactor will be fuelled by thorium, which is available easily and cheaply in India unlike uranium, which has to be imported.
But, import is subject to certain political conditions such as signing of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty or NPT, which India refuses to sign because in such an event it would have to give up its nuclear weapons programme.
The fast-breeder programme is also important because it produces more plutonium than it consumes, and this plutonium is vital for India's nuclear weapons programme.
India is acknowledged to have a fast-breeder programme which is among the fairly-advanced ones in the world. India already has a 5MW fast-breeder test reactor in Kalpakkam near Chennai ever since 1985.
In 1997m India added a 40 MW sodium cooled fast-breeder reactor again in Kalpakkam.
Atomic scientists are now building a 500 MW fast-breeder in Kalpakkam, which should be ready by 2010.
The US has experimented with fast breeders since 1951, but does not have a fast breeder at this time. Russia has five fast breeders. France shut down its super-phoenix because of high operating costs. Japan shut down the Monju fast breeder in 1995 because of fuel leakage. It is to reopen in 2008.
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