Uranium

The principal theme of this work is the centrality of Uranium, the main raw material, in the nuclear cycle. The contemporary relevance of the subject for the wider Indian readership cannot be overstated against the backdrop of the enormous public debate around the expansion of the country's nuclear programme.

One immediate concern when the government negotiated bilateral agreements with other nuclear powers was with their political and strategic dimensions. Inevitably, a broad appreciation of the basic scientific and technological aspects of nuclear energy eluded these discussions. This book fills this knowledge gap in an important manner.

The authors provide a refreshingly dispassionate assessment of the Indian nuclear reality. They underscore the extremely limited availability of Uranium resources and the far from optimal quality of the material, relative to international standards. This important aspect was hardly addressed in the main debate, which was driven by the need to project India's case for economic growth and energy self-sufficiency. This scenario also exerts a strong bearing upon the future of the Indian nuclear programme, in particular, the country's continued dependence on Uranium imports from the world's nuclear powers. Further, the authors offer a scientific and threadbare analysis of the implications of radiation - an area that has pitted the nuclear establishment against environmental groups.