ANEEL fuel

• Clean Core Thorium Energy, the Chicago-based company has developed (and patented) a fuel, which is a mix of Thorium and Uranium of a certain level of enrichment, called HALEU (High Assay Low Enriched Uranium).
  • HALEU is Uranium enriched to more than 5 per cent but less than 20 per cent.
• It is being called ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life) — named in honor of India’s foremost nuclear scientists, Dr Anil Kakodkar.

ADVANTAGE FOR INDIA

• India has the world’s largest reserves of Thorium, estimated at 07 million tones.
  • Thorium is derived from minerals like monazite (containing 10% thoria and 0.3% urania) and thorianite.
• If India uses this Thorium, it can then produce enough green energy and easily turn net-zero by its target date of 2070.
  • But, 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.
  • As neutrons from these fissile materials bombard Thorium, it mutates into Uranium-233, which is also a fissile material. So, to use the Thorium in India, you need sufficient stocks of Uranium-235 (which India has very little of), or Plutonium-239 (which is produced using Uranium-235).
• This is where ANEEL fuel can be a game changer for india

ABOUT ANEEL FUEL

• ANEEL can be used in the existing Pressurized Heavy-Water Reactors (PHWRs), 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.
• The ANEEL fuel bundle lasts much longer and burns more efficiently.
  • Its burn-up is 60,000 MW-days per tonne, compared with the 7,000 MW-days per tonne of the conventional natural uranium fuel in PHWRs.
• It also leads to significant reduction in waste generation and cost savings.
• Due to the inherent benefits of using thorium, the spent ANEEL fuel cannot be used for weapons.