November 14, 2007 (LPAC) -- Four new fast breeder reactors, which will be used to convert India's abundant thorium supplies into fissionable uranium, are approved for construction by 2020, the Director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Energy Baldev Raj said in Mombai on November 14. The reactors will also generate excess power for the electricity grid.

India's Planning Commission has already cleared the 500 MW fast breeder reactors, each costing around Rs 31 billion (about $800 million). Two of the reactors will be set up at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, alongside the existing Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and the Prototype Fast Breeder reactor (PFBR), which is under construction.

India's fast breeder reactor program is primarily to develop fissile uranium-233 fuel from the country's abundant supply of thorium-232. These breeder reactors use plutonium to trigger the reaction through the release of free neutrons. The breeders are the second-stage of India's three-stage self-sustaining nuclear power program, designed by late scientists Dr. Homi Bhabha in the 1960s. The third and final stage will use the fissile uranium-233 generated from thorium-232 by the breeder reactors.

India's three-stage program was primarily designed to establish thorium as India's only nuclear fuel, since India has the world's second-largest thorium reserves in the form of monazite ore found in the sands of the Kerala coast. India has very little natural uranium. Its thorium program is aimed at achieving independence in nuclear fuel. This, along with other physical economic programs, will liberate India from the British Empire’s 'Globalization' policy, which will further increase the potential population density and living standards of the society.