Allaying fears in the minds of the public after the recent quake-tsunami-triggered explosion in a couple of nuclear reactors in Japan, Site Director, Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) M. Kasinath Balaji has said the state-of-the-art safety measures in the 1,000 MWe capacity pressurised water reactors of KKNPP had made the reactors the safest units.
Speaking to reporters at Koodankulam on Tuesday, Mr. Balaji said the nuclear reactors there had been designed to be safe in all natural eventualities such as tsunami and earthquake. The buildings that house the reactor and its auxiliary equipment, reactor safety systems, safety diesel generators, the control room and other power generating equipment — all are designed to operate safely under seismic activity as “Koodankulam comes in a Very Low Seismic Category Zone 2 as per the seismic classification.”
While designing the Koodankulam reactors, the designers have considered the ground elevation of all the buildings to be starting from 7.50 metre (25 feet) above the Mean Sea Level (MSL) to preclude flooding due to any reason whatsoever, including tsunami. These design features got testified when tsunami struck the coast of Tamil Nadu in 2004. The Koodankulam site has been provided with a shore protection bund to a height of 7.50 metre from the MSL.
Third generation design
The reactors have the third generation safety design features, in terms of the various passive safety features backing up the active safety systems, ensuring that the core is always filled with water-containing boron and the temperature of water is well below the limits.
Twelve huge capacity water accumulators have been kept inside the reactor building to ensure that the reactor is filled with water with boron, in the eventuality of loss of water from the reactor core. In addition, the reactor is cooled by way of natural circulation in the event of loss of power supply to the recirculation pumps by the large capacity system generators which are kept at high elevation compared to the reactor.
Further, the steam generator water is cooled by a passive air cooling system which works on the principle of natural convection needing no external power. This ensures long term cooling of reactor core in the event of no power supply to the coolant pumps.
Each reactor at Koodankulam is provided with four redundant diesel generators of which only one is required to keep the reactor in cool state under shutdown condition. The diesel generators at KKNPP are located at a higher elevation of 9 metres (30 feet) above MSL, isolated from tsunami-like natural calamities.
The cooling water pumps for the diesel generators are also kept in secured buildings, capable of withstanding earthquakes. In the unlikely event of unavailability of all diesel generators, the passive heat removal system mentioned above, which is a unique feature of the KKNPP, will ensure cooling of the steam generator using the natural cooling by air. Thus the reactor core is kept in cool condition, ensuring that the fuel cladding temperature is within the limits.
In the most unlikely event of core melt, for which the probability is extremely low in this type of reactors in view of the above mentioned features, there is a special feature called ‘Core Melt Catcher' to contain the core melt if at all it occurs.
To convert any hydrogen formed in the above unlikely event, passive hydrogen re-combiners are provided in the containment to recombine the hydrogen back to water. This precludes the possibility of accumulation of explosive quantity of hydrogen in the containment.
Thus the events that had taken place in Japan would not happen in the Koodankulam reactors.
To verify the structural integrity of the above mentioned systems, the system circuits were hydro-tested and the result accepted by the Indian and Russian specialists as well as the Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
Safety drill soon
“Unit 1 of KKNPP is getting prepared for hot run in a couple of days when all the safety systems will be tested for its design capability during operation and power generation will start within three months,” Mr. Balaji said, adding that the safety drill rehearsal involving the local communities will be conducted soon.
Keywords: Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project, nuclear safety
@ Aruliya- First of all, using solely Solar & Wind energy with the
level of technology we have at present is not feasible enough. We
would probably end up denying over half the nation of access to
electricity. Secondly, I wonder what you'd say if I told you that
coal plants expose people like you and me to 100 times the amount of
radiation an ideal nuclear plant would expose us to. I'm not against
renewable sources of energy. However, I do acknowledge that
revolutionalising our energy system so that we end up using only solar
and wind energy will be a slow process and an expensive one at that.
And our country still has 5000 children dying everyday of hunger which
clearly means the government has other priorities to attend to. So
while we do make this slow but steady transition, I don't see why
using well-designed nuclear plants should be a problem.
Nuclear energy is only 3-4% of energy produced in india as however mr balaji said that even if a tsunami attacks likewise fukkushima reactor kudankulam power reactor will not be affected because the uranium is first surrounded by 2m of pure led and then 4m of inpure led so if any natural dissaster occurs also kudankulam cannot be affected. structural engineers and scientist have designed in such a way. To reduce the pwr cut the power plant should start its work
I believe the official should first explain logically to the questions posed by those who commented here before moving to technical specifications.
Nuclear energy is only 3% of the energy produced in india. For this Small percentage of power we have 20 nuclear reactors in india. Chernobyl disaster killed 200 000 people (as per green peace estimate). DO we need to risk so many lives for so little power?
How much electricity is this reactor producing every day? 100 MW? How much does it really serve? Japan is more advanced than india, so they would have had explanations like this as well. Nuclear energy is not for India really.
At least Koodankulam is not near a major metropolis. What safety precautions/evacuation plans exist in BARC and Kalpakkam? How many evacuation drills of local communities have been done in the past 5 years in the above reactors? If what happened in Japan were to happen in either of the above, millions of people if not 10's of millions will stand to lose their lives. Of course life's cheap in India as long as one is not well connected.
What if any accident? No gentlemen will be on the scene and somebody will be giving wrong data to pacify the world. Who will care for the people there? Whatever assurances given, they will be reasoning why that happened just as we see in Japan. What will be the dimension and how ordinary people will get affected, no king in Chennai or Delhi will consider. Long live democracy!
Mr.Phani, of course what Mr.Vishwanathan has said is right. We have a written proof by Mr.Balaji himself. Indian Government has not gone mad enough to put a dumb head at this responsible position - true. But fact stays, the tsunami that hit in Japan this year was 40m and short circuit does happens under salt water. Maybe we have all that hi-fi stuff. But why the hell to risk it??? Solar and wind is far more a better option. Mr. Phani , i dont know how much old you are or Mr.Balaji is. But I am 21. And practically speaking,I want a better life ahead. I am a person who wants to live life.i have dreamed of a beautiful future, and i don't want to see myself or my grandchildren or the coming generation with leukemia. Touch wood. I am really scared., And so is half of young Indian generation. What kind of dangerous future are you Big guys planning to put us in?? You got answer? Anyone Got answer?
Thankfully India rests responsibility of such magnitude (building safety aspects in atomic power plants) to able people such as Mr. K. Balaji and not to a high school student or adults whose intelligence stayed at school-level. Very happy with the explanation given by the official from KKNPP. I request Mr. Vishwanathan, to please read the news item completely before reacting with baseless comments on aspects of such national importance.
Raman and vishvanathan should be allowed to settle down in the remote uninhibited islands of Nicobar.
Why do our officials are always quick to assure us about the safety of national properties when some disasters occur elsewhere? It seems without any reality check, they jump to conclusions and bluff people. Mr. Balaji presents a rosy picture, but that the height of tsunami waves will be limited to 7.50 meters is anybody's guess. Nobody is greater than nature, as we have seen with Japan, even with its advanced technology couldn't prevent the blast in a reactor. To think that they had been operating this plant without all the precautions mentioned in this article would be naive. So our govt. should order a thorough check of all the nuclear plants in our country and make public the results of all the checks so that we will be kept informed and the safety of the plants is not compromised.
It appears that Mr. Kasinath Balaji is either seriously ignorant or mocking at the public. I am not sure if he even had a chance to learn about the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. The height of the wave that hit Japan was 10 metre at many places. The highest wave recorded to date in Japan is 40 metre. The shore protection bund to a height of 7.50 metre is a joke! Diesel powered generators will be submerged if a Tsumani wave of 10 metres emerges in the Indian ocean. Is Mr. Balaji telling the public that Koodankulam power plant can function when completely submerged under water? Would the diesel powered cooling systems work when completely submerged in water? Even a high school student knows that salt water can cause short circuits and the likelyhood of diesel generators running submerged in water is very slim if not impossible. It is a national shame that an Indian official of such stature would go on record to provide a list of absurd comments with the hope that India people are going to be stupid to believe this nonsense. Shame on you Mr. Balaji. He should be shown the door for this mockery.
We always believe and make people believe that we have the 'state of art' technology until a 'disaster strikes'.India is becoming a hot bed for new technologies from all over the world to experiment on a grand scale.Nuclear energy is a not a solution for India and should not have been allowed in the first place.
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