Indian, Russian nuclear power agency chiefs discuss future roadmap, tech

Reinforcing the wide-ranging strategic partnership between India and Russia, the chiefs of the Nuclear power agencies from both nations met at an upcoming Nuclear power facility in Seversk, Russia's Tomsk region.

During the meeting, Ajit Kumar Mohanty, Chairman India's Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, and Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, explored the areas of cooperation in peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy.

As pioneers in the field of Nuclear power, exports of nuclear goods and services are a major Russian policy and economic objective.

Also Read:Alleged Russia-North Korea arms trade: South Korea, Japan impose sanctions

According to the Chief of Rosatom, the bilateral discussion touched upon "serial construction of the Russian-designed high-capacity nuclear power units at a new site in India, implementation of land-based and floating low-power generation projects, cooperation in the nuclear fuel cycle area, as well as in the field of non-power applications of nuclear technologies".

Officials also discussed the progress of India's largest Nuclear power project at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, of which two 1000Megawatt reactors are already operational and four more of 1000Megawatt capacity are in various stages of construction.

The development and operationalisation of the Kudankulam Nuclear power generating facility is the flagship project of the Russian-Indian technological and power industry cooperation, with Rosatom State Corporation providing fuel to the power units of Kudankulam NPP throughout their entire life cycle.

Watch:Russia-Ukraine war: Debate on allowing Kyiv to 'attack' Russia

Notably, this bilateral meeting took place at the Seversk site of the Pilot Demonstration Energy Complex (PDEC), which is being carried out as part of the Russian 'Proryv' (Russian for breakthrough) strategic industry project.

The 'Proryv' project is focused on the creation of a new technological platform for the nuclear industry with the closed nuclear fuel cycle and resolving the problems of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.

Simply put, the closed nuclear cycle means that the spent nuclear fuel(from which power has been generated in the reactor) can be re-processed and partially re-used. In the open nuclear cycle, the spent fuel is disposed after use.