00:00Prime Minister Narendra Modi called India's first fast-freeder reactor going critical
00:03a defining step and a gateway to unlocking the country's thorium reserves.
00:07Now that tweet hits home only if you know the backstory and what a backstory this is.
00:13Because this is not just about one reactor in Galapakam, right?
00:16It's about a 70-year bet.
00:18India's nuclear program was never designed like the rest of the world's.
00:21While others built around uranium, India had Homi Bhabha.
00:24That legend of a man built a three-state system for what India actually had.
00:28Very little uranium and a lot of thorium.
00:32Stage 1.
00:32Pressurized heavy water reactors or PWHRs running on natural uranium.
00:36These now form the backbone of India's nuclear capacity, over 8,000 megawatts.
00:41Stage 2.
00:41Fast-freeder reactors.
00:42And this is where we are now.
00:44The 500 megawatt prototype reactor at Galapakam has just gone critical like the Prime Minister
00:48said.
00:49It's basically the point where a self-sustaining nuclear reaction begins.
00:52It does not just generate power, it breeds more fuel than it consumes.
00:56It creates more fuel.
00:57That's the trick, because India's long game is not uranium, it's thorium.
01:00But thorium by itself does not work as fuel.
01:03It has to be converted into uranium-233 inside reactors.
01:07That requires time, scale and a steady supply of fissile material, which is exactly what
01:12fast-freeders are designed to produce.
01:14They take the plutonium generated in stage 1, multiply it and build the inventory needed
01:19to eventually unlock thorium at scale.
01:21That is stage 3.
01:22And it's why this moment matters.
01:25India has been running this playbook for decades.
01:26From the early vision of Gomi J Bhabha, to a test-reader reactor operational since the
01:301980s, to this full-scale prototype that was supposed to be ready in 2010, and is now reaching
01:36criticality.
01:36It's delayed, but not abandoned, because the payoff is structural.
01:40Thorium reserves across India's coasts and riverbeds, from sands on the coast of Kerala,
01:45Tamil Nadu in Orissa, could in theory power the country for centuries, but only if this
01:51chain holds.
01:52PHWRs to breeders, breeders to thorium.
01:54Which is why going critical is not just a technical milestone according to experts.
01:58It's India saying, the second stage is finally here, and the third, for the first time, is
02:03no longer hypothetical.
02:04Tell me if you share the same optimism as the Prime Minister and so many of us.
02:07Like and share this video, follow me on Instagram, I'm Anish Adhikari, thank you for watching,
02:11first things fast.
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