India has supplied cryolines for ITER project in France: Atomic Energy Commission chairman

Sep 28 (PTI): India has supplied four km of cryolines, capable of operating at temperatures ranging from minus 269 degrees Celsius to minus 193 degrees Celsius, for the ITER nuclear fusion project taking shape in France. "As part of its collaboration with ITER for developments in the field of fusion technologies, Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) has supplied approximately four km of cryolines and about six km of return lines for warm gases, manufactured in India, to the ITER Worksite in France," Atomic Energy Commission Chairman K N Vyas said on Wednesday. Vyas was addressing the 66th International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference underway in Vienna. The cryolines and the return warmlines are first of its kind system in terms of large size - up to one metre in diameter, Vyas said.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a collaboration between seven countries to demonstrate nuclear fusion as a clean source of unlimited energy. Vyas said the IPR has also helped in completion of the assembly of top lid sectors of the cryostat of ITER tokamak. A tokamak is a machine that confines a plasma using magnetic fields in a donut shape. Vyas said Indian nuclear power reactors have been setting records in long continuous operation. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) units have operated continuously for durations of more than a year 39 times and more than two years four times. He said excavation work has commenced for Kaiga Units 5&6 - the first pair of 700 MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) being constructed in fleet mode. India is building 10 indigenously developed 700 MW PHWRs in fleet mode at four nuclear power islands in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana.

The 700 MW design is being standardised for the fleet mode with a focus on time and cost. Vyas said the Heavy Water Board, which is the largest global producer of heavy water, has exported Heavy Water to Iwatani, Japan; Hyosung, South Korea, and MilliporeSigma, the US, for non-nuclear applications.