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ANEEL Fuel
January 13 , 2024
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- This invention was made by an American company in the nuclear tech, set up by a person of Indian origin.
- This company has developed a fuel, which is a mix of Thorium and Uranium of a certain level of enrichment, called HALEU (High Assay Low Enriched Uranium).
- Clean Core calls this concoction ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life).
- ANEEL can be used in the existing Pressurized Heavy-Water Reactors (PHWRs).
- PHWR is an indigenous reactor system that is the workhorse of India’s nuclear fleet.
- India has 18 PHWR reactors of a total capacity of 4,460 MW and is building ten more of 700 MW each.
- Most of the current reactors run on uranium fuel enriched up to 5 per cent Uranium-235.
- HALEU is Uranium enriched to more than 5 per cent but less than 20 per cent.
- At present only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale.
- India has the world’s largest reserves of Thorium, estimated at 1.07 million tonnes, enough to last over a century.
- If India uses this Thorium, it can then produce enough green energy and easily turn net-zero by its target date of 2070.
- However, Thorium is a fertile material and not a fissile material.
- This means, it must be paired with Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239 to be used as fuel in a reactor.
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