The ongoing Gulf conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran has once again exposed India's deep vulnerability in maintaining long-term energy security. India is unfortunately not endowed with large crude oil reserves and possesses only limited commercial quality domestic uranium reserves, leaving the country heavily dependent on imports for both fossil and nuclear fuels. Yet there is one almost limitless 'Akshay Patra' of energy in India, its vast thorium reserves, till now not utilised at all in operations. Today, the powers that be at India's atomic establishment are almost abandoning tapping the country's vast Thorium reserve that promises energy independence and not just short-term energy security.
Any prolonged geopolitical disruption in the Middle East immediately translates into price shocks, supply uncertainties and strategic discomfort for New Delhi. This structural dependence underlines a hard truth: energy security cannot be imported indefinitely. India's only credible path to long-term, sovereign energy security lies in deploying its abundant thorium reserves, which can provide clean, sustainable nuclear energy for the next 250 years. By fully operationalising the thorium fuel cycle, India can insulate itself from global turbulence, reduce external dependence, and secure a stable energy future essential for economic growth and national resilience. But there are huge challenges, and India's thorium-based atomic test reactor has not moved beyond the drawing board for the last 20 years.
This war in the Gulf has once again brought India's nuclear energy programme to a new crossroads, shaped by fuel constraints, long-term energy security concerns, and unresolved decisions on thorium. At the centre of this debate is a stark warning from one of the architects of India's atomic energy journey: abandoning the thorium programme would be catastrophic for the nation's future, says Dr Anil Kakodkar, nuclear scientist and Member, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Mumbai.
India's challenge begins with uranium. While global uranium production is expected to rise eventually, nuclear scientists caution that there will be a dip in availability before supply stabilises. If India continues to mirror global nuclear trends without corrective action, it will inevitably face fuel stress just as demand accelerates.
India's long-standing commitment to a closed fuel cycle, where spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed and reused, was never accidental. From sustainability, fuel efficiency, and environmental perspectives, it remains the most rational path. Yet internationally, closed fuel cycles trigger fears of diversion for malevolent purposes, whether for weapons or radiological misuse.
Former Atomic Energy Commission chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar has repeatedly stressed that such risks are not limited to weapon states. "Misuse by rogue elements is always a concern, whether it is chemical explosives or nuclear material. That is why nuclear material has to be under very strict control, especially once you enter enrichment, reprocessing and recycling technologies," he says.
The answer, according to Dr Kakodkar, lies in proliferation-resistant fuel cycles, and thorium offers exactly that pathway. "One of the simplest and most effective ways of achieving a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle is to adopt thorium," he emphasises, adding that this objective has always been central to India's atomic energy programme.
India's advantage is unique. It possesses the world's largest reserves of thorium, a resource that can provide energy security for centuries. Dr Kakodkar argues that just as oil-producing nations once shaped global geopolitics, India could one day occupy a similar position in nuclear energy.
"India can reach a position equivalent to what oil-producing countries hold today, once we enter the thorium domain," he has said, even describing the possibility of a 'nuclear OPEC' led by India, based on low-proliferation-risk fuel cycles.
Thorium also naturally fits into India's technological strengths. It performs best in heavy water reactors, a field where India is globally recognised as a technology leader. Thorium must first be irradiated to produce uranium-233, and heavy water reactors are ideally suited for this "cooking" phase. "We are the custodians of heavy water technology, and thorium works best in these systems," Dr Kakodkar has pointed out.
Large-scale thorium deployment requires expanding India's fissile material inventory. This can be done only through two routes: fast breeder reactors, which generate more fissile material than they consume, and accelerator-driven systems, which breed fuel using non-fission neutrons. Dr Kakodkar has consistently argued that India must pursue both simultaneously, noting that thorium utilisation at scale is impossible without them.
India's original three-stage nuclear programme was designed when domestic uranium availability was limited to around 50,000-60,000 tonnes, making fast breeders essential. Today, access to imported uranium has eased immediate pressure, but Dr Kakodkar warns against complacency. "External uranium access should not delay thorium. In fact, it should accelerate it," he says, recalling that even Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had worried whether civil nuclear cooperation might slow India's thorium ambitions.
That concern, Dr Kakodkar insists, has now turned into an opportunity. Thorium can already be introduced into existing pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), producing uranium-233 after irradiation. While this will not match Uranium-233 breeding that can take place in a fast breeder reactor, given the large fleet of PHWR's that is expected to come into existence, it can provide sufficient feedstock needed to start thorium-based systems at a sizeable scale and avoid future fuel bottlenecks.
A key technology in this transition is the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), a fully indigenous design developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Mumbai, after the Chornobyl disaster, with passive safety features ensuring minimal public impact even during severe accidents. Its second objective was to derive significant energy from thorium and accelerate hands-on experience with the thorium fuel cycle.
The AHWR design, Dr Kakodkar notes, is complete. It has been experimentally tested, reviewed, and qualified for deployment. What stopped it was not science, but prioritisation. "At that time, plutonium had competing requirements, and fast reactors had to be given higher importance," he said. That phase is now largely behind India. India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) in Kalpakkam is in its fuel loading stage before it goes into operation.
Despite technical readiness, the current atomic energy establishment is struggling to bring thorium into reactors at scale. Institutional caution, competing reactor priorities, complex fuel reprocessing challenges, and the sheer difficulty of handling high gamma radiation from thorium-based spent fuel have slowed progress. Critics within the system argue that thorium fuel reprocessing is too complex and that AHWR should be abandoned altogether. Experts point out that as a by-product, Uranium 232, its decay chain produces thallium-208, which emits highly penetrating 2.6 MeV gamma radiation, which is very difficult to handle in the re-processing facilities.
Dr Kakodkar strongly rejects that view. "To say that thorium is too difficult and therefore should be abandoned is uncharitable, to say the least," he has said. "If you say these problems cannot be solved, then there is no thorium, no three-stage programme, and India's nuclear capacity will stagnate. That is unacceptable."
He goes further, issuing one of his strongest warnings yet: "Abandoning the thorium programme would be suicidal for India." In his view, the country's aspiration of becoming a Viksit Bharat is inseparable from large-scale thorium utilisation. "To say 'no thorium' is effectively to say 'no developed India'," he says.
This urgency is sharpened by timelines. India aims to reach 22 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2032, and around 25 gigawatts by 2035-36. Without immediate action on thorium, either through AHWR deployment or thorium loading in PHWRs, India risks a dip in implementation just as energy demand peaks.
The government, meanwhile, has publicly reaffirmed its commitment to thorium. Union Science Minister Dr Jitendra Singh described thorium-based power as "one of the cornerstones of the Indian three-stage nuclear power programme", highlighting its long-term sustainability benefits. He has noted that thorium reactors are expected to generate significantly lower quantities of long-lived nuclear waste compared to uranium-based systems, strengthening their environmental case.
Dr Singh has also pointed to molten salt reactors (MSRs) as a promising thorium technology for the third stage. These reactors operate at near atmospheric pressure, enhancing safety. However, he has cautioned that the technology is not yet mature, and its economic viability can only be assessed after a limited-scale demonstration.
Looking ahead, Dr Kakodkar sees scope for international collaboration, particularly with the United States, on small modular reactors and advanced nuclear R&D. With both countries possessing advanced nuclear capabilities, such cooperation could accelerate closed fuel cycles and thorium deployment while addressing global energy sustainability and non-proliferation concerns.
For India, the message from its senior nuclear scientists is unambiguous. Thorium is not an optional experiment; it is the backbone of long-term energy security. Delay now could cost the country decades. Action, he argues, must begin immediately.
