![]() However, the financial costs of building and decommissioning a nuclear power station are very large, and the waste produced will remain radioactive - hazardous to humans and the environment - for thousands of years. In operation, a very small amount of nuclear fuel will consistently generate a very large amount of electricity and generate very little polluting material. Generating electricity using nuclear reactors carries high risk but offers large rewards. Advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power stations An uncontrolled fission reaction is the basis of an atomic bomb. Many of the features of the reactor are designed to control the speed of the reaction and the temperature inside the shielding. Concrete shield - the daughter products of the fission reaction are radioactive and can be a hazard.Coolant - this is heated up by the energy released from the fission reactions and is used to boil water to drive turbines in the power station.Control rods - these are raised and lowered to stop neutrons from travelling between fuel rods and therefore change the speed of the chain reaction.Moderator - graphite core - a graphite core, for example, slows the neutrons down so that they are more likely to be absorbed into a nearby fuel rod.The fuel is held in rods so that the neutrons released will fly out and cause nuclear fission in other rods. Nuclear fuel - the uranium or plutonium isotope that will split when triggered by an incoming neutron.Among the visitors to Apsara were former Chinese PM Chou En Lai, the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama from Tibet and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.A fission reactor contains a number of different parts: In the second attempt on August 4, 1956, Bhabha said only key personnel should be present in the control room. Late in the evening, after a picnic dinner, the startup was attempted.” But it ran into a technical problem. “It was a typical monsoon with pouring rain and strong winds. ![]() ![]() Srinivasan recalled that the first attempt to make the reactor was set for July 31, 1956. Various units in the city fabricated components for the reactor, like TIFR, the New Standard Engineering Company at Chinchpokli and Mazgaon Docks. He added that the site where Apsara was built featured at one time Sandow Castle, a property belonging to a Parsi family, and a dargah of a Muslim saint. Srinivasan said Bhabha wanted the reactor to be built entirely in India, except for the fuel elements which had to be imported. Former Indian nuke chief M R Srinivasan, in his autobiography ‘From Fission to Fusion’, recalls that Apsara began with a challenge.“Homi Bhabha and John Cockcroft, director of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Establishment, bet whether Bhabha could commission the first Indian research reactor within 12 months of UK’s agreement to lease out fabricated fuel.” The department of atomic energy decided on March 15, 1955, to build what is known as a “swimming pool-type research reactor” and finalised the design by July 1955. The Apsara reactor figures in the TV serial ‘Rocket Boys’, in which Dr Bhabha played by Jim Sarbh drinks champagne and jumps into the reactor once it becomes operational. Other officials of the department of atomic energy who spoke to TOI said that once the Apsara museum attains “criticality”, schoolchildren will be brought in batches. When asked about the project timeline, Mohanty said it could be a year or little more and refused to divulge more details. On Saturday evening, prior to the unveiling the memoirs of former Indian nuke chief R Chidambaram, ‘India Rising: Memoirs of A Scientist’, co-authored by Suresh Gangotra, BARC director and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission A K Mohanty confirmed to TOI: “We are working on converting Apsara into a museum which will provide a glimpse of the history of India’s nuclear programme to the public.” The museum project has been on the cards for quite some time. Apsara U was decommissioned a few years later. ![]() ![]() Scientists used it for basic research in the fields of nuclear physics, medical application, material science and radiation shielding. The one megawatt reactor was shut down in 2009 for refurbishment and restarted on September 10, 2018, as Apsara U. It was dedicated to the nation by Jawaharlal Nehru on January 20, 1957. The reactor is Apsara at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay, which became critical 67 years ago at 3.45pm on August 4, 1956, ushering in the nuclear era for not only India, but Asia as well. MUMBAI: Globally, it could be the first of its kind - a nuclear reactor being converted into a museum for the public. ![]()
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