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Candu nuclear reactor manufacturer denies Jane's report

The Canadian company that manufactures Candu nuclear power reactors says it supplied one of the heavy water reactors to India and halted construction on a second after India detonated a nuclear device in 1974.

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited took issue with a report in the October issue of Jane's Intelligence Review that said eight of India's ten nuclear power reactors are Candus.

India completed the second Canadian reactor on its own in 1981 and built additional heavy water reactors with different features, the company said.

Larry Shewchuk, manager of media relations at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, said the safety shutdown system and radiation containment structures of the Indian-built reactors "are vastly different than those of the Candu design.''

T S Gopi Rethinaraj, a science writer based in Bombay who writes for Jane's on nuclear issues, said two reactors at Madras, two at Narora and two at Kakrapar, "were done indigenously but were all based on the basic Candu design which uses natural uranium as fuel and heavy water as moderator.''

UNI

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