India and Fast Breeder Reactors

M. V. Ramana, "India and Fast Breeder Reactors," Science & Global Security, 17, no. 1, (2009): 54-67.
India has long pursued a fast breeder program, motivated in part by the availability of only poor quality uranium resources within the country. But progress so far has been disappointing, with only one test reactor having been constructed and having a chequered operating history. The larger Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor that is being constructed has a design that compromises safety and will produce expensive electricity, but could be used as a way to convert reactor-grade plutonium to weapon-grade plutonium. Projections offered by the nuclear establishment of fast growth of breeder reactors are methodologically flawed and based on very optimistic assumptions.

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