Thorium is in abundance in the country. The Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research (AMD), a constituent unit of Department of Atomic Energy has established 10.21 million tones of monazite resources under all categories (indicated, inferred and speculative). Indian monazite contains about 9-10 per cent of ThO2 and about 8,7,713 tonnes of Thorium metal can be recovered form the above resources.
The Department of Atomic Energy has designed a 300 MWe advanced Heavy Water Reactor to generate most of its power from thorium based fuel.
Complete replacement of uranium by thorium in existing Indian Reactors is not feasible without a major change in design. However, thorium has been used in a few bundles of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors earlier. Large scale use of thorium is planned in the 3rd stage of the Indian Nuclear Power Program.
The Department of Atomic Energy plans to initiate steps towards construction of an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, a mainly thorium based reactor, during the XIth Plan period. Large scale deployment of thorium for nuclear power generation is envisaged to be carried out after adequate nuclear installed capacity using Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors and Fast Breeder Reactors has been set up.
This was stated by Prithviraj Chavan, the Minister of State (I/C) for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences in the Lok Sabha.
Source: PIB
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