Safety and environmental surveillance measures in mining and processing of uranium ore at Uranium Corporation of India Ltd.

摘要

The discovery of nuclear fission has brought to light the use of uranium as a source of abundant energy. As the world's energy requirement is rapidly increasing with every passing day and the conventional fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) are depleting steadily, the requirement of nuclear energy as a dependable additional energy source is being increasingly felt by the mankind. This trend is likely to continue in the years to come and nuclear energy is slowly occupying a place as the most clean and affordable source of unconventional energy keeping the long-term sustainability in view. There are now 442 nuclear power reactors in operation in 32 countries of the world meeting about 20 percent of the electricity demand. Uranium is the basic fuel for the nuclear power reactors, which is available on earth in extractable mode as ore. Of all the major fuels that mankind has ever used for heat, only uranium belongs to this century. The ability of uranium atom to release a huge amount of energy through the process of nuclear fission was brought to light during early 1940s and since then the mankind has been showing enough interest to locate good deposits of uranium ore and commercially extract it with innovative approaches In India, presently the total installed capacity of nuclear power is 2770 MWe contributing about 2.7 percent of the total electrical energy produced. 14 nuclear power plants in six states are under operation for this purpose of which 12 reactors (PHWRs) use natural uranium as the primary fuel. The first two reactors set up at Tarapur use enriched uranium as fuel.