INESAP Information Bulletin No.24, December 200471717171717171

The last two years have seen revela-tions about secret uranium enrich-ment programs in Iran and South Ko-rea. An older uranium enrichmentprogram about which little is knownpublicly is India’s. Details of uraniumenrichment activities have been keptlargely secret in India, even more sothan its other nuclear activities.1 HereI summarize what is known about theprogram, estimate its capacity andhow much weapons-grade uraniumcould be produced at this facilityshould it be used to do so.

India’s interest in uranium en-richment dates back to the early1970s.2 But it was only in 1986 thatIndian Atomic Energy CommissionChairman Raja Ramanna announcedthat uranium had successfully beenenriched.3 According to one report,a pilot scale plant has been operatingin the Bhabha Atomic ResearchCenter complex since 1985.4 A largercentrifuge plant has been reportedlyoperating at Rattehalli, Karnataka,since 1990.5 This is India’s main ura-nium enrichment facility. There isalso an experimental laser enrich-ment program.

Construction of the Rattehalliplant started in the mid 1980s.6 Dur-ing the initial years of operation, theplant reportedly had “frequentbreakdowns as a result of corrosionand failure of parts.”7 It is thereforenot surprising that many leaders ofthe Indian Department of AtomicEnergy (DAE) held that uraniumenrichment was very difficult andwere skeptical of Pakistani claimsthat they had succeeded in enrichinguranium to weapons-grade levels.Indeed, at least one chairman of theIndian DAE has privately arguedthat Pakistan did not have a nuclearweapon capability because it couldnot have succeeded in enriching ura-nium to weapons-grade levels be-cause of the difficulties in construct-ing centrifuges of the requiredcapacities.

The Rattehalli Plant and theNuclear Submarine Program

The primary purpose of the Ratte-halli plant appears to be to enrichuranium for the Indian nuclear sub-marine, officially termed the Ad-vanced Technology Vessel (ATV),program. It is also possible that en-riched uranium from this facilitywas used in the hydrogen bombtested on 11 May 1998.8 Highly en-riched uranium (HEU) is used inU.S. and Russian thermonuclearweapons.

According to a report from theearly 1990s quoting unnamed offi-cial sources, the Rattehalli facilityconsists of “several hundred operat-ing centrifuges made of domestical-ly-produced maraging steel” with“a likely design throughput of un-der three separative work units(SWU) per machine per year.”9 Onecould take this to mean a total en-richment capacity of about 1,000-2,000 SWU/year. In 1997, it was re-ported that the DAE was planningto “build and install rotor assem-blies of improved design.”10 Differ-ent enrichment levels for the outputof the facility and the fuel used inthe ATV submarine reactor havebeen reported these range from 6%-45%, but we will assume a rangefrom 30-45%.

If, as Indian officials state, theprimary purpose of the Rattehalli fa-cility is to produce fuel for the ATVprogram, an analysis of the subma-rine reactor requirements could helpestimate the uranium enrichment ca-pacity.11 Strictly speaking this wouldonly provide a lower bound. How-ever, since the program has had op-erating difficulties, it is quite likelythat the actual capacity is reasonablyclose to this lower bound.

Despite relatively prolific cov-erage of the Indian nuclear subma-rine program in the media, there isconsiderable confusion about its

technical characteristics. In part thisreflects the fact that the programstarted over 25 years ago and hasevolved considerably over thedecades.12 After numerous setbacksand failures, by the late 1990s a reac-tor design was finalized, and testingof a prototype commenced at theKalpakkam nuclear complex insouthern India.13 This implies thatbetween 1990 and the late 1990s, theRattehalli complex should have pro-duced at least sufficient enriched ura-nium to fabricate the reactor core.14

HEU for the Submarine Reactor

The amount of enriched uraniumneeded for a nuclear submarine re-actor depends on a number of fac-tors. These include the reactor pow-er rating, the level of enrichment,the time intervals between core re-fuelings, the burn-up (which deter-mines the fraction of the initial U-235 that is consumed beforere-fueling [by conversion to U-236as well as fission]), the reactor de-sign (including factors such as fuelgeometry, the use of burnable ab-sorbers, and so on), and the use pat-tern (the average number of effectivefull power days per year or the aver-age power the reactor producesthrough its lifetime). None of theseare definitively known, and there arecontradictory reports on some ofthese quantities (such as the powerrating of the reactor).

One can set a lower bound onthe power required by a submarineby estimating what is needed toovercome drag at the maximum de-sign velocity. The maximum velocityof the ATV is usually given as about30-35 knots, which correspondswell to maximum velocities reportedfor other nuclear submarines.15 Atthe lower value of 30 knots (15 m/s),the ATV would take about 36 hoursto go from Thiruvananthapuram, alikely site for India’s strategic nu-

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India’s Uranium Enrichment Program

M.V. Ramana

Energy and Security

INESAP Information Bulletin No.24, December 2004 72727272727272

clear command center, to Karachi,Pakistan’s chief port and a likely siteof naval blockade by India in theevent of a war.

Assuming this speed and reason-able values for the other physical vari-ables, the reactor power needed isabout 112 MWth. However, this esti-mate is sensitively dependent on theassumptions made about various quan-tities. Therefore, it may be safe to as-sume that the submarine reactor poweris somewhere between 90 MWth and150 MWth.

The amount of uranium that isrequired for the submarine reactorcore to operate at this power leveldepends on the reactor design, thetime between re-fuelings, as well asthe operational procedures and pa-trol routines followed by the sub-marine. For the same power ratingand time between re-fuelings, theuranium inventory for a submarinethat has a more demanding patrolroutine would be higher. The core ofthe ATV is reported to have a designlifetime of ten years.16

Estimates of the U-235 require-ments for U.S. submarines are about0.6-0.7 g/shp-year,17 while the re-quirements for Russian submarinesare likely to be about0.315–0.35g/shp-year.18 The propul-sive power rating for Charlie Classsubmarines is 20,000 shp.19 Similarly,the Sevmorput nuclearicebreaker/cargo ship requires about0.375 g/shp-year of U-235.20 Due tothe smaller distances that the ATV islikely to traverse, one could assumethat the ATV will require about 0.3g/shp-year of U-235. Based on allthese different assumptions, I estimatethat the core of the ATV might useabout 40-160 kg of U-235, with a me-dian estimate of 90 kg. The actualamount of uranium used will also de-pend on the level of enrichment.

HEU for Nuclear Weapons

An additional demand for enricheduranium might be to test or manu-facture thermonuclear weapons. Intwo-stage thermonuclear weapons,enriched uranium can be used in theprimary, in the “spark plug” to aidin initiating the fusion reaction, or

in the “pusher” encasing the fusionfuel.21 Enriched uranium may alsobe used to replace the “blanket” sur-rounding the warhead, which is usu-ally made of depleted uranium, so asto increase the yield of a thermonu-clear weapon.22 However, accordingto the official announcement thatfollowed the 1998 tests, “the yield ofthe thermonuclear device tested onMay 11 was designed to meet strin-gent criteria like containment of theexplosion and least possible damageto building and structures in neigh-boring villages.”23

If this were indeed the case, itis likely that the blanket may havebeen made of inert material. The re-quirement for enriched uraniummay only be a few kilograms used inthe spark plug in this case.24 We willassume this figure to be 5 kg andthat about 10 kg of U-235 was pro-duced for the test carried out on 11May 1998. Apart from the amountactually used in the device exploded,this would also include processinglosses and material used for con-ducting laboratory experiments.

In this scenario, the Rattehalliplant should have produced at least100 kg of U-235 by 1999 for thesubmarine core and the thermonu-clear device tested on 11 March1998. Depending on whether Indiadecided to stockpile thermonuclearweapons, there may or may not be acontinuing demand for enricheduranium for weapons.

Estimated Enrichment Capacity

Enrichment capacity is measured inSeparative Work Units (SWU), ormore precisely kilogram SWUs, and isthe quantity of separative work (in-

dicative of energy used in enrichment)when the quantities of the feed (usual-ly natural uranium), the enrichedproduct, and the remaining tails areexpressed in kilograms. The enrich-ment capacity requirements, the feedrequirements, and the amounts ofuranium enriched to different levelscontaining 1 kg of U-235 are summa-rized in Table 1. For a given tails en-richment level, the SWU require-ments per unit mass of U-235 doesnot depend strongly on the enrich-ment level. This SWU requirementmay be lowered by using a higher en-richment level for the tail, but thatwould significantly increase the amountof uranium used as feedstock. We there-fore assume that the tails enrichmentlevel is 0.3%, which means that that itwould take approximately 200 kgSWUto produce a kilogram of U-235. Thus,manufacturing the 90 kg submarinecore would require 18,000 kgSWU ofenrichment capacity. A 40 kg corewould require 8,000 kgSWU of enrich-ment capacity and a 160 kg core wouldrequire 32,000 kgSWU of enrichmentcapacity.

Based on reasonable assump-tions about when enrichment startedand the tail enrichment level, our esti-mates of enrichment capacity are listedin Table 2. The best estimate of current(2004) capacity from our analysis is4,800 kgSWU/year. However, we em-phasize that there are significant un-certainties and so it would be morereasonable to quote a range of enrich-ment capacities, namely 3,900-10,400kgSWU/year. The amount of enrichedproduct produced would depend onthe enrichment level. For example, ifthe facility were producing weapons-grade uranium (93% enrichment),then with this range of capacities, the

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Enrichment Tails SWU/kg Kg-EU/ kgSWU/ kg-feed*/kg-U-235 kg-U-235 kg-U-235

30 0.3 59.8 3.3 199.3 240.940 0.3 81.5 2.5 203.7 241.545 0.3 92.4 2.2 205.3 241.740 0.2 96.6 2.5 241.5 194.740 0.5 64.4 2.5 161.0 468.0

*Feed is assumed to be natural uranium.

Table 1: SWU Requirements

M.V. Ramana

INESAP Information Bulletin No.24, December 200473737373737373

facility could produce about 20-50 kgevery year. If the facility were produc-ing 30-45% enriched uranium, then itcould produce about 40-175 kg of en-riched product and 4,500-12,400 kg ofdepleted uranium every year.

There is no indication that Indiais seeking to fuel any of its Light Wa-ter Reactors with indigenous en-riched uranium. This is also borneout by the above estimates of the ca-pacity. A facility with a capacity ofabout 10,000 kgSWU/year could pro-duce about 2.6 tons of 3.3% enricheduranium each year. This is to be com-pared with the initial core loading of66 tons for the VVER-1000 reactorsthat India is importing from Russia.25

Thus, at the estimated range of cur-rent capacities, it would take decadesfor India to enrich sufficient uraniumfor even one reactor core.

This estimate of enrichment ca-pacity also has implications for thesize of the nuclear submarine fleetthat can be sustained by India. At200 kgSWU/kg-U-235 and 90 kg U-235/reactor core, a 4,800 SWU/yearfacility could produce a reactor corein about four years. Nuclear strate-gists have argued that India requiresa fleet of three to five submarines.26

Since each submarine would need anew core in ten years, the estimatedcurrent capacity may be just insuffi-cient to produce the enriched urani-um requirements for a three subma-rine fleet. But since the enrichmentcapacity can be increased, this maynot be a major bottleneck.

Literature:

- Albright, David, Frans Berkhout andWilliam Walker, 1997, Plutonium and HighlyEnriched Uranium 1996, Oxford UniversityPress, New York.- Alvarez, Robert and Debra Sherman, 1985,US to resume uranium production for weapons,Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April, pp.28-30.- Anonymous, 1999, Reactor for N-subma-rine by next year, The Hindu, August 17.- Bukharin, Oleg, 1996, Analysis of the Sizeand Quality of Uranium Inventories in Russia,Science and Global Security, Vol. 6 No. 1.- Chellaney, Brahma, 1987, Indian ScientistsExploring U Enrichment, Advanced Technolo-gies, Nucleonics Week, March 5.- DAE and DRDO (Department of AtomicEnergy/Defence Research and DevelopmentOrganisation), 1998, Joint Statement by De-partment of Atomic Energy and Defence Re-search and Development Organisation;www.indianembassy.org/pic/PR_1998/May98/prmay1798.htm, accessed on October 1, 2003.- FAS (Federation of American Scientists),Undated, Project 670 Skat / Charlie I & Project670M Skat-M / Charlie II; www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/theater/670.htm, accessedon October 1, 2003.- Fera, Ivan and Kannan Srinivasan, 1986,Keeping the Nuclear Option Open: What ItReally Means, Economic and Political Weekly,December 6, 11(49), pp. 2119-2120.- Gopalakrishnan, A., 2000, Undermining nu-clear safety, Frontline, June 24.- Hansen, Chuck, 1995, The Swords of Ar-mageddon: US Nuclear Weapons DevelopmentSince 1945, CD-ROM.- Hibbs, Mark, 1992a, India and Pakistan Failto Include New SWU Plants on ExchangedLists, Nuclear Fuel, March 30.- Hibbs, Mark, 1992b, Second Indian Enrich-ment Facility Using Centrifuges Is Operational,Nuclear Fuel, March 26.- Hibbs, Mark, 1997, India to Equip Cen-trifuge Plant with Improved Rotor Assemblies,Nuclear Fuel, December 1.- Kumar, Dinesh, 1998, India Inching To-

wards Indigenously Build N-powered Sub-marines, The Times of India, October 3.- Mærli, Morten Bremer, 1998, CriticalityConsiderations on Russian Ship Reactors andSpent Nuclear Fuel, Norwegian Radiation Pro-tection Authority, Oslo.- Nilsen, Thomas, Igor Kudrik and AlexandrNikitin, 1996, The Russian Northern Fleet:Sources of Radioactive Contamination, BellonaReport, Bellona; www.spb.org.ru/bellona/ehome/russia/nfl.- Nuclear Engineering International, 1998,World Nuclear Industry Handbook 1998, Busi-ness Press International, Sutton, England.- Ølgaard, Povl L., Undated, The PotentialRisks from Russian Nuclear Ships, NKS-SBAStatus Report, Risø National Laboratory,Roskilde, Denmark; www.svanhovd.no/nrpa/nks/paper_povl.pdf.- Podvig, Pavel (ed.), 2001, Russian StrategicNuclear Forces, The MIT Press, Cambridge.- Raghuvanshi, Vivek, 2001, Indian NavyReaches Nuclear Power Milestone, DefenseNews, November 5.- Ramana, M.V., 2004, An Estimate of India’sUranium Enrichment Capacity, Science andGlobal Security, Vol 12 No 1-2, pp. 115-124.- Reddy, C. Rammanohar, 2003, NuclearWeapons Versus Schools for Children: An Esti-mate of the Cost of the Indian Nuclear WeaponsProgramme, in: M.V. Ramana and C. Ram-manohar Reddy (eds.), Prisoners of the NuclearDream, Orient Longman, New Delhi, pp. 360-408.- Rethinaraj, T. S. Gopi, 1998, ATV: All at seabefore it hits the water, Jane’s Intelligence Re-view, June 1, pp. 31-35.- von Hippel, Frank, David H. Albright andBarbara G. Levi, 1986, Quantities of Fissile Ma-terials in US and Soviet Nuclear Weapons Arse-nals, Princeton University/Center for Energyand Environmental Studies, Princeton.

1 For example, the location of the uraniumenrichment plant was not included in the listof nuclear sites exchanged by the govern-ments of India and Pakistan as a confidencebuilding measure, Hibbs, 1992a.

2 Albright et al., 1997, pp. 269-270.3 Chellaney, 1987.4 Fera and Srinivasan, 1986.5 Hibbs, 1992b.6 Fera and Srinivasan, 1986.7 Albright et al., 1997, pp. 270.8 Though the yield of the nuclear test and

therefore the success of the design have beenquestioned, there is no reason to doubt offi-cial Indian assertions that a two-stage ther-monuclear bomb was tested.

9 Hibbs, 1992b.10 Hibbs, 1997.11 For a more detailed analysis of these re-

quirements see Ramana, 2004.12 For a useful history of the program see

Rethinaraj, 1998.13 Raghuvanshi, 2001; Kumar, 1998; Gopalakr-

ishnan, 2000. One report claims that thesetests are of a “scaled down reactor” but thishas not been corroborated elsewhere. Evenif true, it is still likely that the Rattehalli

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Requirements Average enrichment Enrichment capacity Current enrichmentcapacity (1991-1999) in 1999* capacity (2004)*

Submarine core 2,250 kgSWU/y 3,000 kgSWU/y 3,900 kgSWU/y(90 kg U-235)

Submarine core 4,000 kgSWU/y 6,500 kgSWU/y 9,600 kgSWU/y(160 kg U-235)

90 kg submarine 2,500 kgSWU/y 3,500 kgSWU/y 4,800 kgSWU/ycore + 1998 thermonuclear test(10 kg U-235)

160 kg submarine 4,250 kgSWU/y 7,000 kgSWU/y 10,400 kgSWU/ycore + 1998thermonuclear test(10 kg U-235)

*assuming linearly increasing capacity and rounded off

Table 2: Estimates of enrichment capacity

India’s Uranium Enrichment Program

INESAP Information Bulletin No.24, December 2004 74

Bearing in mind the fact that the Chash-ma-I nuclear power plant has proved noth-ing to write home about, there seems tobe little justification for the Chashma-2project. Are all things nuclear above thelaw?

Pakistan has signed up to buy its sec-ond Chinese-made nuclear powerplant. This new plant will be identicalto the earlier reactor at Chashma, de-signed and built by the Chinese, onthe banks of the Indus River, about 30miles from Mianwali. The project hasbeen given the go-ahead despite thefact that the experience with the firstreactor has not been encouraging.Economic factors related to the proj-ect are dubious and many questionsthat were raised about the safety ofthe Chinese design and the location ofthe first reactor at Chashma remainunanswered.

The deal for the Chashma-2 nu-clear power plant was signed in Maythis year. It is said that the reactorwill be built in less than seven years,with some reports suggesting it mightstart operating by 2010. But buildinga nuclear power plant is no simplematter. There were similar claimsabout the Chashma-1 plant. Whenthe Chashma-1 contract was signedat the end of 1991, it was thought thatthe reactor would start operating insix years. But it took almost nineyears before it was finally handedover by the Chinese to the PakistanAtomic Energy Commission (PAEC)in late 2000, and it was only formallyinaugurated in early 2001. It is quitelikely that the schedule for Chashma-2 will slip too, and it may be closer to2015 before the reactor starts produc-ing electricity.

Economics factors related to nu-clear electricity are quite mysteriousin Pakistan, since the PAEC cloaks it-self in secrecy and seems reluctant togive away any kind of detailed ac-counts. But it was reported that theChashma-1 reactor cost somewhere

between US$ 600 million and overUS$ 1 billion. Some informed sourcessuggest the actual cost was aboutUS$ 1.3 billion, that is, approximatelydouble the cost that was originallyclaimed. This is a staggering figureconsidering that the plant was de-signed to produce only 300 MW,meaning over US$ 4 per MW of elec-trical power capacity. For compari-son, this is more than twice the costfor every megawatt of electricity gen-erating capacity from the GhaziBarotha hydroelectric project inaugu-rated by President Musharraf in Au-gust 2003. It has been reported thatPakistan has budgeted Rs 54.392 bil-lion for the Chashma-2 reactor. Aswith Chashma-1, the actual final costis likely to be higher.

The operating costs of nuclearreactors (per unit energy produced)are invariably higher than those of athermal power plant. This is true inPakistan’s case. Thus the electricityproduced by nuclear power plants isbound to be costlier.

While China designed and builtthe Chashma-1 project, which thePAEC now operates, it is Wapda thathas to buy electricity (to distribute itfor domestic use etc). In 2003, Wapdacomplained publicly that it was beingforced to pay almost twice what itshould for electricity generatedthrough Chashma-1. The electricitythat Wapda produces and buys fromindependent power producers ismuch cheaper than what is beingcharged by the PAEC for Chashma-1. The dispute over price betweenthem was eventually settled after thegovernment intervened and forcedWapda to pay some extra amount.Wapda officials have argued that thisis causing them an annual loss of Rs 3billion. One senior official is of theview that the Chashma-1 plant is “go-ing to eat our revenues for decades.”There is no reason to expect that elec-tricity generated by Chashma-2 willbe any cheaper. But whatever the cost

Another Nuclear White Elephant

Zia Mian and A.H. Nayyar

747474747474

complex would have produced sufficient en-riched uranium to fabricate the entire reac-tor core.

14 It is of course possible that the necessary en-riched uranium was produced much earlier.But the reports that the Rattehalli facilitywas not working well suggests that the nec-essary enriched uranium would have likelybeen produced only close to the time the re-actor began to be tested.

15 See for example Raghuvanshi, 2001.16 Anonymous, 1999.17 von Hippel et al., 1986. shp = shaft horse-

power; 1 shp = 0,746 kilowatts.18 My calculations based on information from

Podvig, 2001, pp. 273-278, Bukharin, 1996,and Nilsen et al., 1996.

19 FAS, Undated.20 My calculations based on information from

Mærli, 1998 and Ølgaard, Undated. 21 Hansen, 1995, pp. I-94. The spark plug is a

fissile mass placed in the center of the fusionfuel. When the fusion fuel is compressed bythe shock wave, the fissile mass is com-pressed to supercritical densities setting off achain reaction, which increases the yield andproduces additional neutrons that could in-duce ignition of the secondary.

22 Alvarez and Sherman, 1985.23 DAE and DRDO, 1998.24 This would presumably increase the chances

of igniting the secondary, a likely goal for afirst thermonuclear test.

25 Nuclear Engineering International, 1998,pp. 60. VVER = Voda-Vodyanoi Energitich-eskiy Reaktor, the Russian pressurized wa-ter reactor.

26 Reddy, 2003, pp. 380-381.

M.V. Ramana is Fellow at the Centre for In-terdisciplinary Studies in Environment andDevelopment, ISEC Campus, Nagarab-havi, Bangalore 560072, India; tel. +91-80 23 21 70 13 (X24); ramana@isec.ac.in; http://www.cised.org.

CISED aims to promote environmentallysound and socially just development bycontributing critically and constructively topublic and academic debates. Its mandateis to work on issues at the interface of en-vironment and development.

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