Indian Delegation visited KAERI

A group of the Indian delegation headed by Dr. K.L. Ramakumar, Head of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), visited KAERI on January 13, 2016. At the meeting with Dr. K.L. Ramakumar, Dr. J. K. Kim, President of KAERI, introduced the current status and future perspectives of nuclear technology development program in Korea. Dr. Kim said that it is very meaningful for Korea to promote nuclear cooperation with India which has expertise and know-how in nuclear technology accumulated over a relatively long period of time.

Dr. Ramakumar expressed his interest in the future nuclear energy systems, including SFR coupled with pyroprocessing, under development in Korea. He mentioned that India’s nuclear energy program has been unique as it mostly relies on home grown nuclear technology and that India’s nuclear energy self-sufficiency extended from uranium exploration and mining through fuel fabrication, heavy water production, reactor design and construction, to reprocessing and waste management. He also said that because of earlier trade bans and the lack of indigenous uranium, India has uniquely been developing a nuclear fuel cycle to exploit its reserves of thorium. He noted that Korea and India have a great potential for promoting mutually beneficial cooperation. They made a tour of several KAERI research facilities, including ATLAS, STELLA-1, CNRF, RIPF, etc.

They visited Korea to attend the 2nd Korea-India Nuclear Cooperation Committee Meeting held in Daejeon on January 12, 2016. This meeting is being held as a follow up to the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Republic of Korea for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy signed in July 2011, and the agreement by the leaders of Korea and India in January 2014 to hold regular exchanges to expand cooperation in the sector of civil nuclear energy. The 1st meeting was held in Mumbai, in December 2014.

India possesses strong and excellent manpower and expertise in the areas of reactor, nuclear fuel cycle, commercial NPPs and non-power areas, including radiation and RI applications in industry and has pursued diversified research and development areas with a great wealth of highly-skilled professionals and excellent expertise. It is also well known that India has secured a very high-level of nuclear fundamental technologies in various areas. I hope that promoting cooperation with India will provide a good opportunity to acquire advanced nuclear technology and experience from India and to identify practical methods of cooperation.

Practical and concrete areas of cooperation between our two countries have been identified from several Korea-India nuclear cooperation seminars that were organized by KAERI and IGCAR in the areas of SFR Development and High Temperature Materials, Design and Assessment, thus contributing to facilitating bilateral nuclear cooperation.