CIRUS reactor
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CIRUS (Canada India Research U.S.) is a research reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Trombay near Mumbai, India. CIRUS was supplied by Canada in 1954, but uses heavy water supplied by the U.S. (hence its name). It is the second oldest reactor in India. It is modeled on the Canadian Chalk River National Research X-perimental NRX reactor.[1] The 40 MW reactor burns natural uranium fuel, while using heavy water (deuterium) as a moderator.[2] It is a tank reactor type with a core size of 3.14 m (H)x2.67 m (D). It first went critical July 10, 1960.[2]
The reactor is not under IAEA safeguards (which did not exist when the reactor was sold), although Canada stipulated, and the U.S. supply contract for the heavy water explicitly specified, that it only be used for peaceful purposes. Nonetheless CIRUS has produced much of India's weapon plutonium stockpile, as well as the plutonium for India's 1974 Pokhran-I (Codename Smiling Budda) nuclear test, the countries first nuclear test.[3] At a capacity factor of 50-80%, CIRUS can produce 6.6-10.5 kg of plutonium a year.
CIRUS was shut down in September 1997 for refurbishment and was scheduled to resume operation in 2003. The reactor was brought back into operation two years late in 2005. During refurbishing, a low temperature vacuum evaporation-based desalination unit was also coupled to the reactor to serve as demonstration of using waste heat from a research reactor for sea water desalination. Even if the reactor has a life of twenty more years, India has recently declared that this reactor will be shut down by 2010 in accordance with the Indo-US nuclear accord reached between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush.[3]
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