New Delhi:

India and France on Wednesday expressed an intent to jointly develop modern nuclear reactors, emphasising that nuclear power was crucial for energy security and transition to a low-carbon economy.

The two countries signed a letter of intent on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs), according to a joint statement issued after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

SMRs are compact nuclear fission reactors that can be manufactured in factories and then installed elsewhere. They typically have a smaller capacity, of less than 300 Megawatts, than conventional nuclear reactors.

“Prime Minister Modi and President Macron stressed that nuclear energy is an essential part of the energy mix for strengthening energy security and transitioning towards a low-carbon economy. Both leaders acknowledged the India-France civil nuclear ties and efforts in cooperation on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, notably in relation with the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant Project. They welcomed the first meeting of the Special Task Force on Civil Nuclear Energy, and welcomed the signing of a letter of intent on Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR),” said a foreign ministry statement.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the two countries discussed their strategic partnership in civil nuclear energy.

Mr Misri said the area of SMRs and AMRs has come up in recent times, but has progressed quickly. “The reason that you see a letter of intent is because both countries feel that there are real possibilities in taking this forward in the very near future,” said Mr Misri.

“The idea on this particular front is to start cooperation because this is a technology that is still in its initial stages, even in countries which have been working on it for some time. Therefore, our intent is to be able to cooperate in co-designing the reactors, co-developing them, and co-producing them. This, we feel, will actually allow us to tackle the complications that we are, for instance, facing in other areas insofar as conventional projects are concerned,” said Mr Misri.

“So if we, from the outset itself, get into co-designing, co-producing, and co-developing SMRs and AMRs, I think it can leverage the industrial ecosystem in India that already exists for nuclear components and nuclear power plants, and both of us will benefit from that,” he added.

New Delhi and Paris renewed a memorandum of understanding between India’s Department of Atomic Energy and France’s Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives of France, concerning cooperation with the Global Center for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP).

Both nations agreed to enhance collaboration in training and education for nuclear professionals.

India aims to generate 100 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2047 as part of its transition to clean energy.

Earlier this month, the government announced plans to launch a Nuclear Energy Mission with a budget of Rs 20,000 crore to support research and development of SMRs.

As part of the initiative, India plans to operationalise at least five indigenously developed SMRs by 2033.

At present, nuclear power plants contribute 1.8 per cent of India’s total installed power capacity of 462 gigawatts and around 3 per cent of total electricity generation. This helps save around 41 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Cooling towers are seen through a window at the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant, during a tour by Constellation Energy, which has ordered a main power transformer for the nuclear reactor it is trying to reopen, in Middletown, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 16, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

The story so far: On October 14, Google announced the “first corporate agreement” to buy nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMR). These SMRs will be developed by Kairos Power. The initial phase of work will bring up the first SMR by 2030, and subsequent deployments will continue through 2035. Per Google, this deal will provide 500 MW of carbon-free power to U.S. electricity grid. The search giant said this agreement will help in the development of AI technologies to power major scientific advances.

Why does Google want to buy nuclear energy?

Training AI models, ensuring that they remain always online, and maintaining growing data centres are energy-hungry tasks. In a 2024 Environmental Report, Google admitted that its total global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 13% in 2023 year-over-year, pointing to the “challenge of reducing emissions while compute intensity increases and we grow our technical infrastructure investment to support this AI transition.” Google has held that nuclear energy was clean, available round-the-clock (unlike solar energy), and carbon-free. In that vein, the search giant sees the next generation nuclear reactors as a way to power global data centres and its offices with the help of clean energy. Smaller sizes and modular designs further help the tech giant in faster deployment cycles.

Which other companies are partnering with nuclear reactor makers?

On September 20, Microsoft and Constellation signed a 20-year power purchase agreement intended to launch the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) and restart the Three Mile Island Unit 1. The deal should add around 835 MW of carbon-free energy to the grid, according to Constellation’s statement.

“This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative,” said Bobby Hollis, Microsoft’s VP of Energy, at the time.

Amazon this month also announced that it signed three new agreements to support nuclear energy projects, such as the construction of SMRs. In Washington, it partnered with Energy Northwest. It was further making an investment in SMR reactors and fuel developer X-energy, and partnering with Dominion Energy in Virginia.

“We also previously signed an agreement to co-locate a data centre facility next to the Talen Energy’s nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, which will directly power our data centres with carbon-free energy, and helps preserve this existing reactor,” Amazon said in a blog post.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the nuclear startup Oklo, which aims to build a commercial microreactor in Idaho and have it operational in 2027, though delays could affect this, reported CNBC. Altman also invested in the nuclear fusion company Helion in 2021.

Is nuclear energy truly clean?

This is still a matter of debate. The main takeaway is that nuclear energy has a serious reputation problem, due to public memory of past accidents and crises that span generations.

For example, Ukraine’s Chernobyl explosion (1986) and Japan’s Fukushima accident (2011) resulted in extensive environmental destruction that lasted for years, even as the impact on human health is still being researched. While Chernobyl is a case study on multiple human errors and a communication breakdown, Fukushima demonstrates how natural disasters beyond human control – such as a tsunami – can lead to a devastating nuclear accident.

Separately, in the U.S., the Three Mile Island accident of 1979 in Unit 2 of the facility’s nuclear generating station involved a combination of a malfunctioning valve and human errors, resulting in the core overheating and releasing radioactive gases. While not considered overly dangerous to the surrounding population, it is regarded as one of the worst industrial nuclear accidents in American history. Microsoft’s deal with Constellation aims to start Unit 1 again; Unit 2 was decommissioned after the accident.

Many environmental groups are actively protesting against nuclear energy and the way it is being presented as “clean energy.” ‘Friends of the Earth,’ an international network of organisations, said on its website in 2018, “Since it was first commercialized, nuclear power has proven to be one of the dirtiest, most dangerous and most expensive sources of energy. Nuclear reactors have a long history of accidents, leaks, extended outages and skyrocketing costs.”

The organisation also pointed out the dangers of nuclear infrastructure being built over earthquake-prone areas.

But there is hope in SMRs as they have potentially lower building and operational costs. A U.S. Department of Energy report noted that SMRs have compact designs and can function in areas unable to withstand larger or older nuclear power plants that require huge volumes of water.

What is the U.S. government’s stance on nuclear energy?

Apart from seeing nuclear power as one source of clean energy, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy highlighted the importance of re-establishing the U.S. as a nuclear leader, to stay ahead of China and Russia.

Dr. Rita Baranwal, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, noted, “As the use of nuclear energy continues to expand internationally, it is crucial that the United States reasserts itself as a leader in this incredible technology. Existing U.S. nuclear plants prevent almost 500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year—the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the roads.”

 Three broad types of nuclear reactors to generate electricity.
| Photo Credit: A. Vargas/IAEA 

While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman singled out small nuclear reactors for special mention in her Budget speech, these devices have been gaining favour around the world as countries have been faced with roadblocks to utilising renewable energy better and found fossil fuels harder to remove from the power generation mix.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are miniaturised versions of large nuclear power plants. According to R. Srikanth, Dean of the School of Natural Sciences & Engineering at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, they promise to be safer by virtue of having fewer operating parts and more safety features.

Large nuclear power generation facilities remain an important source of power in many countries, but many of them — including most in India — have been operationalised only after enormous time and cost overruns. Renewable sources of energy are currently beset by insufficient energy storage options. The processing capacity for many of the minerals required to manufacture the components of batteries and other electrified infrastructure has also been cornered by China.

With increasing electrification, especially in the transportation sector, the demand for continuous power generation has also increased, keeping fossil-fuel based power generation facilities relevant.

SMRs have emerged as another option in this milieu to complement existing power generation facilities, including nuclear ones. Dr. Srikanth said research on SMRs to be used in India is currently underway at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai.

The ‘Bharat Small Reactor’ is related to SMRs but is also different. At the Madras Atomic Power Station in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India has been operating two nuclear power facilities of 220 MW each for nearly 40 years. One of these reactors is currently undergoing repairs. The other is to become the first Bharat Small Reactor (BSR).

According to Dr. Srikanth, this reactor will be re-engineered to incorporate additional safety features. A reactor with output lower than 300 MW is considered ‘small’. The purpose of this exercise is to turn this “proven” reactor into a small nuclear power facility.

If it is validated, Dr. Srikanth said, similar BSRs are planned to be set up closer to their sites of consumption, especially facilities like steelmaking that require captive power generation and are also in desperate need of decarbonising.