Research Report No - International Panel on Fissile Materials

The PFBR is designed to have a thermal power of 1250 MW and an initial inventory of
1910 kg of plutonium in its core. 106 The current design is reported to have an overall,
equilibrium cycle breeding ratio of almost 1.05. 107 Applying the neutron balance in a
generic breeder reactor with a homogeneous core permits a first order estimate of
plutonium production in the PFBR core and its radial and axial blankets. 108 With these
uncertainties in mind, we find that at 80% capacity the PFBR could produce on the order
of 135 kg of weapon grade plutonium every year in its blanket. 109 This would amount to
about 25-30 weapons worth of plutonium a year, a four to five fold increase over India’s
current weapon plutonium production capacity.
India plans to build four additional breeder reactors by 2020, and then move to larger
1000 MWe breeders and eventually install 500 GWe of breeder capacity. 110 Each of the
four planned 500 MWe breeder reactors would need two initial cores before they would
be able to begin recycling their own plutonium, a total of about 16 tons. 111 India would
appear to have more than sufficient unsafeguarded plutonium for placing all four of the
planned breeders in the military sector. If these five breeders are built and all are kept
military, then in about fifteen years, India would be able to produce about 500-800 kg per
year of weapon grade plutonium from them.
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