#Thorium based Reactors
India has abundant quantity of thorium resources contained in the mineral monazite occurring in the beach sand placer deposits along the eastern and western coasts of the country as well as the inland placers in parts of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) through its Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration & Research (AMD) has carried out exploration activities over the past six decades, which have resulted in establishing in situ resources of 11.93 million tonnes of monazite as on February 2016 in the country. Indian Monazite contains about 9-10% of Thorium oxide (ThO2) which in turn results in about 1.07 million tonnes of Thorium oxide (ThO2).
A three stage nuclear power programme has been devised to efficiently utilise this large reserve of thorium. The energy potential of this thorium reserve is estimated to be more than 155,500 GWe-years.
This information was provided by the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.