Right now you do. You don't have enough explored resources for both the weapons and the civilian program. Right now, you can do one or the other but not both.
I dont quite agree with your statement at all, I'll prove here that Indias nuke programme boost is independent of 123 without taking into account what the new FBR's and AWHR's can do and their respective fuel cycles. Plus one thing you need to remember without this deal India
wont build LWR's at all, If it builds the Russian VVER's it comes with guaranteed fuel supply directly from Russia. Why will we build electricity from LWR's when we dont have enough Uranium to sustain it? We will simply carry on with our 3 stage programme.
Atoms for War?
U.S.-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India's Nuclear Arsenal
By Ashley J. Tellis
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/atomsforwarfinal4.pdf
India’s capacity to produce a huge nuclear arsenal is not affected by prospective U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation. A few facts underscore this conclusion clearly. India is widely
acknowledged to possess reserves of 78,000 metric tons of uranium (MTU). The forthcoming Carnegie study concludes that the total inventory of natural uranium required to sustain all the reactors associated with the current power program (both those operational and those under construction) and the weapons program over the entire notional lifetime of these plants runs into some 14,640-14,790 MTU—or, in other words, requirements that are well within even the most conservative valuations of India’s reasonably assured uranium reserves. If the eight reactors that India has retained outside of safeguards were to allocate 1/4 of their cores for the production of weapons-grade materials—the most realistic possibility for the technical reasons discussed at length in the forthcoming report—the total amount of natural uranium required to run these facilities for the remaining duration of their notional lives would be somewhere between 19,965-29,124 MTU. If this total is added to the entire natural uranium fuel load required to run India’s two research reactors dedicated to the production of weapons-grade plutonium over their entire life cycle—some 938-1088 MTU—the total amount of natural uranium required by India’s dedicated weapons reactors and all its unsafeguarded PHWRs does not exceed 20,903-30,212 MTU over the remaining lifetime of these facilities.
Operating India’s eight unsafeguarded PHWRs in this way would bequeath New Delhi with some 12,135-13,370 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, which is sufficient to produce between 2,023-2,228 nuclear weapons over and above those already existing in the Indian arsenal.
Something more regarding how much we have done in a bit of it,
http://www.indiaresearch.org/Indo-USStrategicDeal.pdf
3. Indian PHWR reactors that are outside IAEA safeguard when operated for efficient power generation would have cumulatively required just 5,842 tonnes. India is estimated to have mined about 9,200 tonnes I of natural-uranium, indicating that about 55% II of the fuel and 8% of its reactor capacity was used in low fuel burn mode, generally associated with operating the reactors in mode optimized to generate weapon grade Plutonium. This corresponds to about 2,400Kg weapon grade Plutonium enough for 800 strategic nuclear weapon.
.... ... . .
I WEC Survey of Energy Resources 2001 - Uranium Resources :
World Energy Council
II Assuming 650 tonne fuel is set aside for inventory and fuel fabrication WIP. Also factors in reduced plant load factor and fuel for weapon grade Pu stays in reactor only 15% of the normal time.
That was a once through cycle assumption. There is still the very likely possiblity of recycling. i.e. after reprocessing low burn fuel rods to recover WgPu the spent fuel rod is very low on redioactivity and can be easily re-constituted into fuel rod to burn and use the balance ~85% of fissile fuel to reach full burn level. This will only push up higher the Indian WgPu estimate.
Sir this are only existing plants, I have excluded the FBR's and some other reactors under construction. The uranium resource is also excluding some 5 to 10 mines recently in talks of opening but due to some tribal resistance in remote areas for the same it will be a uphill task politically.
Sir, The US came to India with this deal for entirely different reason, Us knows very well with or without the deal we can carry on nuke weapons programme so lets bring India in the international arena for better systematic approach, Here is a view of principle scientific advisor to the government I'll put a expert,
The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : “For nuclear renaissance, the world needs India”
There, you have people objecting on the basis of proliferation misconceptions. It is time the U.S. realised India is not a ‘proliferation threat.’ In a 2001 paper, I introduced a new parameter — the Stockpile Increase Significance Coefficient (SISC) — defined as a measure of the significance of a unit increase in the number of nuclear weapons a country has, i.e. the significance of x weapons going to x+1. The SISC is obviously maximum when x=0. As x increases for a country like India with a programme based on self-reliance, the coefficient approaches zero as the country ceases to be of interest in the context of nuclear weaponisation. This is when the hurdles to international cooperation likely disappear. That, in my opinion, is the reason why the U.S. came to India with this deal. Obviously this graph would not apply to a country with weapons based on clandestine acquisition.
Within this decade, this means nothing. Your thorium projects cannot possibly go into full energy production within this decade.
Sir the Thorium project you need to realise is a 3 stage project, While continuation of previous stages will lead to the final stage, the definition of 'full' energy production is dependent on the amount of energy we need, We plan to import around 8 to 10 LWR's with strategic fuel reserve for the same which is a part of our energy needs, I still fail to realise how after 'testing' and dissolve of the agreement US will be able to , Stop us from producing electricity off the LWR's (strategic fuel reserve is there), the only way right to return, possible but we will have the money anyway, not to forget if our own atomic energy act gets amended on the basis 'no return from a functional nuke reactor', It will be sorta a stalemate with quid pro pro like thing. The third stage of our project is also divided,
www.dae.gov.in/publ/3rdstage.pdf
Stage 1 : Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR)
Stage 2 : High temperature reactor based power packs.
Stage 3 : Accelerator driven fertile converters.
Stage 4 : Accelerator driven system with a fast reactor sub-critical core together with a mainly thorium fuelled thermal core somewhat similar to that present in AHWR.
Stage 1 : Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR)
This is the classic AHWR concept. Will require lot of fissile material to charge the start-up. Thereafter at equilibrium will smaller flow of fissile driver fuel. As AHWR reactor design matures this hold promise of not requiring any driver fuel in-flow.
Stage 2 : High temperature reactor based power packs.
The objective here is to prove smaller form factor reactor and to prove higher efficiency thermal energy conversion to electricity and in parallel direct conversion to Hydrogen gas.
Stage 3 : Accelerator driven fertile converters.
This reactor core is almost identical to Stage-1 classic. Just that Pu fuel pins are not used. The neutrons gap earlier filled by fissile Pu is replaced with ADS driven neutron flow.
Stage 4 : Accelerator driven system with a fast reactor sub-critical core together with a mainly thorium fuelled thermal core somewhat similar to that present in AHWR.
Again very similar to classic AHWR. Instead its core will be be a fast core (no moderator) and ADS will directly fission Thorium there generating many more neutron than via ADS driven spallation source. The excess neutron from fast core will fill in the neutron gap earlier filled by fissile driver fuel.
Stage 1,3,4, are most promising. With Stage 3,4, no driver fuel is needed
So saying we are not yielding anything from Thorium is wrong, We are already in the process 1,2,3 in yielding it, fuel cycle needs to reach a state of maturity to let the whole system run independently a decade is quite a good time.
Yeah, you do. The fuse alone cannot be developed until your final RV is determined. India may have the basic concept down but the devil is in the details and from open source, the details, especially with the shape of the RV is not determined and you won't determine that until you get the MIRV into the prototype stage at least.
Sir i'm not getting you here again, The final RV for MIRV has been already determined who says it hasnt? which is the RV MK3 previously was MK2 (MK3 uses Composites and a more autonomous profile), it is flight tested and everything. How come Warhead has to do with MIRV at all?, other than being miniaturised enough et al and being able to support the RV. Sir this is not older gen MIRV's where you need to spin the RV for better stability while releasing, All you need is a post boost vehicle to release the RV's which will be jetissoned on the vehicle, the RV's are completely and I mean completely independent on anything and all its controls sensors fuse are based onboard. The shape of the RV has been determined as well. Indian RVs have been tested before with their Pu primary pits replaced with a non-fissile material. Recovery of RV allows verification that the detonation was successful.
Please check this,
Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All you need is a effective MIRV bus, now if your questions is how come Indians made a RV without making first the MIRV bus, the thing is a bit other way around here the RV MK3 is small enough and light enough will be made to fit in the MIRV bus, as I have been saying all along, Agni 3 is the stepping stone of future developement and it probably wont enter production as soon. Lastly I'll not count that we have MIRV capability until the scientists demostrate it, plain and simple.
Why not? They do. Hence, the series of test before the ban on testing.
Again your not getting the point I'm saying sir please look down. Mostly did series of tests before signing CTBT to validate megaton yields and new designs based on highly enriched plutoniums. We dont need megaton yields...
You're not understanding. The series of tests ran by the N5 before the stop had nothing to do with validating designs. They were to determine how old can a bomb get before it's completely useless.
Sir I dont feel this is at all the right way to justify something, if yes please show me how so, So your stating x tested a Warhead based in 1980's and x tested the previous warhead lets say a decade back, So the new test was to validate 'how old can the bomb get before its useless' so its not a new design? I think how old can a bomb be a bomb is determined by the half life and all sort of calculations regarding the same of the materials and not just mere testing... Testing is entirely mainly to validate a new design, entirely to design how good the plutonium you have extracted is and if it works or not, Sir you need to realise We validated a small enough design which is the prime reason for test, prime reason for test is to validate the amount of simulation data and many other things which you may need later or may not. Sir even if your assertion is to be taken for granted lets just say the quality of pluronium we used (see down) and warheads based on that will last easily a decade or two, so simply reject the warheads and opt for new warheads with newly enriched WgPu at that time, Its not like we are producing all WgPu today we will keep producing them at slow pace and if needed decade later we will use current WgPu at that time to make the same Warhead based on the same design. The French tests were very much about validating designs. The French president also ordered a full yield test of their latest warhead and completely new design in late 90's. The Chinese are thought to have tested one of their W88 type system as well, all new designs.
Also, One
of the 1998 Pokhran tests was of a device from the stockpile a design of the PNE series from 1974, So its not that what your state India did not do it, It did that very much by testing the fission device which was a derivative of the PNE, but What you stated is not the main reason for testing at all is what I feel, regardless of this when a warhead gets at its end of life, the firing systems, the chemical explosives etc can be replaced. The Tritium needs to be replaced. The Pu pits can 'reprocessed' just like spent fuel and new pits cast and machined. Please see this.
Plutonium: Aging Mechanisms and Weapon Pit Lifetime Assessment
US Weapons Plutonium aging gracefully
You need to realise sir The fact that the tests India did demonstrated validity of the computer simulation, in pushing the LOWER EDGE OF criticality for a boosted-fission / fusion weapon.
There is more to the validation then just knowledge. Pls see the variable yield American B61 (
The B61 Bomb ). Lowest 0.3 kt and highest 340kt. Arguably this TN weapon has lowest yield of 0.3 kt when there is no gas boosting (or just enough to stay away from falling off cliff), and progressively higher gas boosting to intermediate boosted fission at 5 kt, and then graduates to partial fusion burn and last end stop at full boosted fission to give full fusion yield.
Similarly there is another US TN weapon with lowest 0.1 kt yield and higest 150kt.
What India did are calibrated shots of 0.2 kt, 0.3 kt and 0.5 kt smack in the middle of the TN trade sweet spot.
In DOE (Design of experiments) more test are done on sensitive part of the curve and fewer on the insensitive/well understood part. The whole range of Fusion burn and ablation is only understood by actual experimentation on high energy physics. aka a range of cyclotron, accelerators and magnetic containment. When high energy physics was not understood the only other options was experimental modeling to make empirical models, the way Russia and US did in plenty during 60's and early 70's. on the other hand BARC had so many years of high energy physics experimental experience under its belt before 1994. So when time comes to test, they craft a DOE that tests:
1. fusion stage once,
2. low yield unboosted primaries 3 times and
3. boosted primary 1 time then secondary.
What does that say?
It says that they know like the back of their hand physics of boosting and fusion. Only the sharp curves of small fission and engineering there of need be validated. Which they did.
Recalling RC's words in the presentation,
THE MAY 1998 POKHRAN TESTS: Scientific Aspects
by R. Chidambaram
There are other thermonuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile where the warhead yield is reported to be widely variable, while the dimensions and the weight are said to be the same. Engineering wise, this is desirable.
Why talk of specific nuance if it is not by practical experience "been there, done that" ?
As for sub kiloton he says,
Achieving a match between design yields and achieved yields for each of the three sub-kiloton tests - 0.5 kt, 0.3 kt and 0.2 kt - has confirmed, among other things, the equation of state of Plutonium used by us.
Recall there are three types of plutonium you can develope in generalised patterm, the third of its kind is exactly the type you need for MIRV type warheads (to make warheads and subsequently RV's) the RV MK3 which will carry the same warhead aka our S1 design.
Plutonium is classified according to the percentage of the contaminant plutonium-240 that it contains: Super grade 2-3%; Military grade less than 7%; Fuel grade 7-18%; Reactor grade 18% or more.
MANAGEMENT OF SUPER-GRADE PLUTONIUM IN SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL
Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information - Sponsored by OSTI
The Department of Energy (DOE) owns some 57 MT of
spent nuclear fuel that contains approximately 260 kg of
super-grade plutonium, i.e., material comprised of at least
99% 239Pu. This fuel, from the blanket regions of two of
DOE’s demonstration and test reactors used in the liquid
metal fast reactor program, is not considered to be “self-
protecting” by any aclmowledged standard. The mass of
the spent fuel is somewhat equally divided, 22.4 MT of
Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-11) blanket fiel
and 34.2 MT of Fermi-1 blanket fuel. The plutonium
distribution is however, very asymmetric with 250 kg in
the EBR-11 fuel elements and only 8 kg in the Fermi-1
fuel.
Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
The Japanese civilian nuclear power program is producing accumulations not only of reactor-grade plutonium but also of supergrade plutonium, which would be especially suited for the miniaturization of warheads and thus for MIRV type ICBMs.
Most estimates indicate that, even utilizing reactor-grade plutonium, only four kilograms would be needed to make a relatively simple pure fission weapon with a maximum probable yield of 20 kilotons. Supergrade plutonium is especially suited for the miniaturization of warheads. Since it is a more reliable explosive than grades with less purity, involving less danger of premature detonation, the other components of the warhead could be small and light.
Hanford N Reactor
"N Reactor initially produced weapons-grade plutonium from 1964 to 1965. From 1966 to 1973 it produced nine percent fuel-grade plutonium-240 for AEC's breeder reactor program, and from 1974 until 1984 it produced 12 percent fuel-grade plutonium-240.
"Beginning in 1981 during a shortage of weapons-grade plutonium and an excess of fuel-grade plutonium, DOE began to blend fuel-grade plutonium from N reactor with super-grade plutonium (`3% PU-240) from SRS to make weapons-grade plutonium. All N-Reactor-produced fuel-grade plutonium, except for the amount supplied to and used by the Fast Flux Test Facility (an experimental reactor at Hanford) was considered excess and available for blending. The blending of fuel-grade and super-grade plutonium was performed in F Canyon at SRS. By 1990, all available fuel-grade plutonium had been blended.
Also, understand this. There is NO WAY the entire Indian arsenal is 100% effective. Through open source, a 30-40% failure rate is expected by all arsenals. It has nothing to do with the designs. The designs work. However, Quality Assurance is another thing altogether. Unless you take a bomb out of the inventory from time to time and detonated them, you won't know just how effective is your production line.
Sir I have never said Indias arsenal will be 100% effective, quality assurance is determined by the quality of plutonium you used heavily as well, also read the Tritium article, Tritiums are like tonic have power to energise limping horse. (just a example)
There can be no better examples than the Pak tests. They were duds despite the fact that they had proven Chinese designs for over a decade. The difference between the Indian tests and the Pak tests is that the Indian tests had their scientists ran every possible prep work to make sure nothing goes wrong. The Paks just took theirs out of their inventory.
Sir I'll not comment on Pakistans test however I'm failing to see the analogy to this with that of the need to test more completely and totally, atleast not when we have proof of what India actually tested and the scientific community is confident on the matter, and we dont need any yield more than 200KT~300KT. If we need design changes more payload we might need to test later, So I'm not holding that we need to test in future to have a nuclear deterrent nor I'll state that we never need to test anymore in future. So far what we have is fine with the type of vehicles we are making and with the type of yield we envision around 200 KT TN per warhead.
And despite your best prep work, things still go wrong. How many failed AGNI tests were there?
Sir our developement path was quite okward unlike any other nations (the ex CIA heads book on nuke secrets has good information on chinas work which states Indias work mostly remained out of other influences). Yes things do go wrong the reason I never stated there will be no failure rate, Even if it is not confirmed but for the sake of conclusion it is better to assume it.
So to say India doesn't need anymore tests is extreme confidence if not bordering on arrogance.
All I said we dont need anymore tests to have a warhead capable of delivering 200~300 KT of
payload, if needed we could have done that before. Sir your analogy that we need to test just because we wont know when a bomb wont burst because it is old I think weird (remember we tested one of from our stockpile as well), and our designs in 80's were not tested but later more finer designs based more refined plutonium than was tested, which also speaks of the type of materials we used, Our first test was in 1974 and we have acquired knowhow of nuke bomb around 60's.....Down the line in 20 years later if we need new design, more payload we need to test and if so be it we will do it anyway.
106 is the only section I am aware of where observance is mandatory on the part of India. The rest are to be reported by the POTUS as details of progress.
Well Yes Testing = Hyde terminates = US asks back things = Pays us, Also there is a clause if any other country tests specially china and pakistan (for rest it holds as well have to check the specific clause), India is free to test.
