India reopens one of world’s oldest nuclear power plants and that’s just the beginning

When the Tarapur Atomic Power Station opened in 1969, India was a proudly independent nation, keen to make a name on the global stage.

The country was developing at a rapid pace and economic self-reliance was front of mind in the wake of massive famines and wars with its neighbours.

And as India restarts those reactors at Tarapur almost six decades later, it is gripped by somewhat similar concerns.

It’s riding a wave of nationalism led by the Modi government and working to become the next global superpower.

The country is still fighting the occasional skirmish with China and Pakistan and doubling down on self-reliance.

And the restart of Tarapur this year, now one of the oldest nuclear power plants in the world, tells a story about India’s ambition, defence priorities and reliance on countries like Australia.

“As India advances towards a cleaner and more secure energy future, Tarapur continues to stand as a symbol of innovation, resilience and technological excellence,” the Nuclear Power Corporation of India said on X.

Birth of a nuclear superpower

After casting off the shackles of the British Empire, India established an atomic energy commission in 1948.

With fuel from the UK and technology from Canada, it built research reactors in the 1950s but commercial power generation didn’t occur until Tarapur opened.

Since then, India has repeatedly set and fallen short of lofty goals to dramatically increase nuclear power.

Today, nuclear powers just 3 per cent of the grid, but the government last year announced it would expand that to 10 per cent, or around 100 gigawatts, by 2047.

MW Ramana from the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Global and Global Affairs said India was not alone in having great expectations.

As a share of global generation, nuclear has declined from a peak of 17 per cent in 1996 to 9 per cent in 2024.

“And this is partly because nuclear power plants are very expensive and ultimately just a very complicated way to boil water using a hazardous process,” Professor Ramana said.

But the lacklustre rollout of nuclear energy in India isn’t just about economics; it’s about the politics of nuclear warfare.

Buddha, bombs and a failed plan to stop India

The reactors at Tarapur had only been running a few years when India made a big decision: it detonated a nuclear bomb.

The underground explosion at the Pokhran testing site in 1974, code-named Operation Smiling Buddha, was ostensibly to advance “peaceful” uses of the bomb, such as mining excavation or canal construction.

But, along with India’s refusal to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, it sent shock waves around the world.

The US suspended exports of enrichment uranium to India in 1980 amid concerns about its nuclear weapons program.

Eventually, India was largely excluded from the global trade of fuel and technology, isolating its nascent nuclear industry.

India has long campaigned for nuclear disarmament; however, it perceived the non-proliferation treaty to be “very unfair”, according to Marianne Hanson of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia.

“That treaty recognised five existing nuclear weapon states, those that had overtly tested nuclear weapons before 1967,” she said.

Early adopters, like long-time rival China, are afforded a special status under the current treaty while late bloomers like India, Israel and Pakistan are obliged not to develop weapons.

“So you’ve got the nuclear haves and then the rest of the world,” Professor Hanson said.

Regardless, India now has an estimated 190 nuclear weapons, thought to be a few more than Pakistan but a third of China’s arsenal.

India’s three-stage strategy

Despite having few uranium resources and few people willing to trade with it, India did not abandon its nuclear power ambitions.

The father of the nuclear program, Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha, devised a three-stage strategy that would harness local expertise and resources.

First, India designed and built pressurised heavy water reactors, which use far less natural uranium and do not require enrichment facilities.

These reactors also produce plutonium, which can be used in fast breeder reactors to be built in the second stage.

India reached a major milestone this April, with a 500-megawatt prototype reaching criticality.

These “breeder” reactors generate more fuel than they consume, so they can produce uranium-233 from one of the most abundant fuels on the planet: thorium.

And a new generation of thorium-based reactors will drive the third and final stage of the strategy, and India’s energy independence.

Harnessing the power of the Norse gods

Thorium is three times more abundant than uranium and India is estimated to hold the most resources in the world, at around 850,000 tonnes.

But despite being named after the Norse god of thunder, Thor, thorium is not powerful enough on its own — hence the three-stage strategy.

Edward Obbard, a UNSW nuclear materials engineer, said if the world ever ran out of uranium “everyone will be using thorium”.

Professor Obbard said fuel produced from thorium had fewer “really problematic nuclides in the waste stream” and was more “lightly regulated”.

“It’s still classed as nuclear material for the Atomic Energy Agency, but it’s not a material of very great concern because it’s so many steps away from being able to say, make a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Australia holds the third-largest reserves of thorium in the world; however, it has little interest in that market given it also holds 28 per cent of the world’s uranium.

And until India can complete its plan for energy independence, it needs countries like Australia.

End of India’s nuclear winter

India still hasn’t signed the non-proliferation treaty, but its nuclear winter has started to thaw.

The 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group agreement paved the way for imports of nuclear fuel and technology, with India later signing cooperation agreements with the US, Russia, France, the UK, South Korea and Canada.

A 2015 deal to secure Australian uranium was reinforced this month, with an “administration agreement” to ensure fuel is solely used for peaceful purposes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it would “give our clean energy objectives fresh momentum” and was “important for our strategic security”.

But Professor Ramana said the 2008 agreement was “quite unfair” as signatories of the non-proliferation treaty had agreed not to develop weapons in exchange for nuclear technology.

“There’s something very unfair about the fact that a small subset of these countries who have commercial vested interest in selling technology to India change those rules.”

India still has eight nuclear reactors not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency oversight, raising concerns about their activities and preventing use of imported materials.

Professor Hanson said the main problem with any peaceful nuclear power program was the potential for it to be “upgraded”.

“If you’ve got the technology and the materials for a nuclear power plant, over time and with determination you can enrich that uranium to a weapons grade level,” she said.

Will small reactors bring a big energy boost?

Today, India has 24 operational reactors with eight under construction and a dozen more proposed.

The two original reactors at Tarapur had been offline since 2020 and while much has been made of their return, they supply just 150 megawatts each.

Professor Ramana said they were small enough to meet the criteria for the latest buzzwords in nuclear power — small modular reactors.

“Modular just means the construction practice we do today, which is a lot of the manufacturing in factories and then mostly do the assembly on site,” he said.

“If India were to construct a new 220 megawatt heavy water reactor, it probably would fit the label of small modular reactor, but they don’t want to say that because they want to dress it up as something really new.”

But building new nuclear power plants in India — whatever type — may prove challenging.

There were widespread protests against the Russian-built Kudankulam plant, and Professor Ramana said renewables were faster and cheaper.

“Even though there is a large population in India that is lacking in access to sufficient amounts of modern energy sources, focusing on renewables does seem to be the right way,” he said.

India’s government and power corporation were contacted for comment.