France, Russia looking towards India for nuclear collaboration

France and Russia are among several other countries which are looking towards collaborating with India on nuclear power for global markets, principal scientific adviser to the government, R Chidambaram said today.

As a result of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, nuclear supplier guidelines have undergone few changes, following which many countries, including France and Russia, are talking about partnering with India, he said delivering a talk on 'Energy Technology, Energy Security and Climate Change' at the College of Defence Management (CDM) in Hyderabad.

"They (France and Russia) are not just looking at India as a temporary market but they are all looking for joining (partnership) with India and looking for global markets not only in nuclear power but other sectors," Chidambaram said.

"And that's what we should aim for... to reach for global markets as for as possible with our own efforts and later with international collaboration," he said.

After the Indo-US nuclear deal, projections on nuclear power have been raised and it (nuclear) is expected over 60,000mw by 2032 while till 2020 nuclear power was projected at 20,000mw, the former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre said.

"Export oriented IT service has created lot of wealth in the country, but if you want to think of India as a developed country you have to become a global leader in manufacturing," he emphasised.

Quoting a report issued by the Deloitte Global Manufacturing Industry group and the US Council on Competitiveness, Chidambaram said they have put India on the second rank after China in the Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index for 2010.

"One of the reasons they attribute is the talent driven innovation in India being a factor for its emergence," Chidambaram said, adding, "The greatest resource in India is its human resource."

He said India is aiming for an electricity capacity of over a million megawatts by 2050 of which a large percentage should be nuclear.

"For India to become a developed economy, the per capita electricity consumption has to increase manifold and nuclear (energy) has to play an important role in this increase," he added.

Even Abu Dhabi is developing a nuclear plant as it does not want to depend on fossil fuel alone for (power production) and 30 other countries are also starting nuclear power projects, Chidambaram said.

"Closing the nuclear fuel cycle is essential if nuclear (energy) is to be a sustainable mitigating technology in the context of the climate change threat and this is in coherence with India's three-stage nuclear programme," he said.

Later, speaking to reporters, Chidambaram said work on the Kalpakkam 300mw advanced heavy water reactor would begin shortly and was likely to be completed in five years.

"Thorium is in the longer term (as fuel) for India and Kalpakkam is a technology demonstration project. This project will give us better understanding of physics of thorium-based reactors which holds the future for India's power generation capacity," he said.

Work on the country's first and biggest Integrated Coal Gasification Combined Cycle (ICGCC) 180MW power plant will commence shortly at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh soon, he added.