The Energy From Thorium blog reports, 'The People's Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. It was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences annual conference on Tuesday, January 25.' The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is an alternative reactor design that 1) burns existing nuclear waste, 2) uses abundant thorium as a base fuel, 3) produces far less toxic, shorter-lived waste than existing designs, and 4) can be mass produced, run unattended for years, and installed underground for safety.

Here is full blog...

The French state-owned DCNS (French military shipyard) announced today a concept study for an underwater nuclear reactor dedicated to power coastal communities in remote places. It is derived from nuclear submarine power plants, and its generator would be able to produce between 50 MWe and 250MWe. Such a plant would be fabricated and maintained in France, and dispatched for the different customers, thus reducing the risk for proliferation.
Here is the full article....

India has to pass a Nuclear Liability Bill to activate the Indo-US Nuclear agreement. This liability bill sets a limit on maximum financial liability in case of a nuclear disaster. The liability limit is required for the US nuclear reactor manufacturing companies to get insurance in their home state. Currently the financial limit in the bill is around $500 million, which is causing lot of controversy since a similar limit in US is around $10.5 billion. A parliamentary panel reviewing this bill will visit Kalpakkam to learn about the security and operation of the power plants at Kalpakkam. They are also going to get feedback from the trade unions and the public on this bill. Here is the article from Hindustan Times on the visit. If you are interested in learning more on this bill, here is a link

Wired Magazine has an article on how Uranium is so last century and Thorium will be the new Green Nuke.. In that regard, India is well positioned by having 25% of world thorium resource and well ahead in exploiting it.
Here is the full article...

Here is an article from Times of India

In a nuclear accident that is bound to raise key safety concerns ahead of India’s ambitious atomic expansion programme, 45 employees of the Kaiga atomic power plant suffered radiation poisoning when radioactive heavy water from the plant contaminated the drinking water. Kaiga is one of India’s newer nuclear reactors.

Hi sports lovers,
Inter DAE Sports Meet starts on 02-02-2009 at NESCO Shuttle Badminton Court.
This year Kalpakkam is hosting Badminton (Shuttle).
All the best to our players.

Another sad news... Ex-Director of IGCAR Dr. Placid Rodrigues passed away at the age of 68. Here is the article from Times of India

CHENNAI: Eminent metallurgist and former director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Dr Placid Rodriguez died on Sunday morning.

The 68-year-old scientist was admitted to the Apollo Hospitals here after he complained of chest pain on Sunday morning. However, he did not respond to the treatment and died. Dr Rodriguez is survived by his wife, a daughter and son.

C. V. Sundaram was the Director of IGCAR when the FBTR went critical. Here is the article from Economic Times

One of the country's outstanding metallurgists and former director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Chokkanathapuram Venkataraman Sundaram passed away, according to Department of Atomic energy sources here.

This year Kalpakkam Carnival is between Aug. 2 and Aug 10 at NESCO ground. Everybody have fun.

Link to the article
The country's first indigenously built nuclear power reactor Madras Atomic Power Station Unit-1 (MAPS-1), located at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu and set up at a cost of Rs.2.4 billion ($57 million), will complete 25 years Wednesday.