While nuclear power accounts for only 3% of the total generation in India, it accounts for as much as 75% in France. Though in absolute quantitative terms, it is the US which still holds the number one slot with about 830.1 bln units produced from this source. India produces a mere 16.7 bn units from this source.Only about 30 countries have nuclear power stations, which can generate electricity.Nuclear generation does not suffer from the problems of greenhouse gas emissions and fly ash accumulation associated with coal based thermal stations. About 35 tonnes of fly ash gets generated per 100 tons of coal consumed.Nuclear plants are very costly. For a typical thermal plant the cost works out to Rs. 4 to 4.5 cr per MW while it is about Rs. 6 to 6.5 cr per MW for a nuclear plant.The life of a nuclear plant is about 35 years in comparison to that of 25 years for a thermal plant. Cost of fuel for nuclear plants is less than Rs. 0.5 per unit as against about Re. 1 for coal based plants. For gas based thermal plants it is about Rs. 1.5 per unit (based on a gas price of about $4 per mmbtu – million metric british thermal units).One tonne of nautral uranium can produce more than 40 mln units of electricity. This is equivalent to bruning 16,000 tons of coal, 100 mln cubic meters of gas or 80,000 barrels of oil. A typical 1,000 MW power plant would require about 40 lk tonnes of coal per year.
