New Delhi: For decades, thorium has loomed large in India’s nuclear imagination, promising vast reserves, clean energy and a self-reliant future. Scientific papers flowed, advanced reactor designs were drafted and experiments were conducted. Homi Bhabha’s three-stage nuclear power programme was based on the idea that India would first use its limited uranium to produce fissile material and then tap its vast reserves to generate commercial power.
But even by 2025, country’s top nuclear institutions such as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) have not produced a thorium-based fuel that can be used commercially in reactors. Instead, it emerged from a relatively young US-based private company (Clean Core Thorium Energy or CCTE).
Known as the Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life (ANEEL), this fuel is designed for India’s pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), the very reactors New Delhi has built and refined over decades.
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The irony is the fact that India proved the science behind thorium, built reactors capable of using thorium-based fuel and produced years of detailed research on the closed fuel cycle. But when the moment arrived to move to commercial use, the breakthrough came from a private foreign company, raising serious questions about priorities, execution and how institutions have handled this opportunity.
From Vision To Reality, But Not At Home
India’s three-stage nuclear programme was an ambitious plan. Because the country had limited uranium, Homi Bhabha envisioned a route to energy security that relied on using India’s large thorium reserves.
In practice, Indian scientists and engineers have got useful and positive results from thorium research. Thorium oxide pellets have been tested inside pressurised heavy water reactors, and the Kalpakkam Mini Reactor (KAMINI) reactor has successfully run on uranium-233 produced from thorium.
But despite these achievements, the country has never licensed and deployed thorium-based fuel at commercial scale in its own power network. Designed to use thorium, the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is still only a plan on paper, even though it has been talked about for more than 20 years.
Thorium-uranium mixed oxide (Th-U MOX) fuel can be used in existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) with only minor adjustments. It has been designed, tested and proven to work. Irradiation experiments at the Idaho National Laboratory showed that the fuel can handle high-stress conditions, demonstrating its readiness for real-world use.
Foreign Fuel, Indian Roots, Strategic Ironies
The Closed Cycle Thorium Experiment (CCTE) was founded in 2017 by Indian-origin entrepreneur Mehul Shah, bringing commercial experience to nuclear fuel design. The company has raised around $15.5 million from well-known Indian investors that shows strong support for thorium’s commercial future.
What’s even more noteworthy is the team of advisers for this foreign company. Dr Anil Kakodkar, former head of India’s Atomic Energy Commission and a long-time supporter of the country’s thorium plans, serves as an advisor. Even the company’s name, ANEEL, has been described as reflecting conceptual continuity with India’s nuclear terminology.
This is not a criticism of anyone as retired scientists often advise private companies around the world. But when an important person in India’s thorium programme is involved in a breakthrough made outside the country’s main scientific institutions, it naturally raises questions about national priorities and how well institutions are performing.
However, there is no public evidence that it has formal ties to India’s AEC; the connection is either symbolic or advisory.
Why The Delay In India?
Experts outside the country have been open about the delays in thorium development. They point out that moving thorium from research to commercial use has been slow for several reasons.
Technically, thorium is not fissile on its own and must first be converted into uranium-233, a process that requires advanced reactor and reprocessing technology.
Policy and priority changes over the years also played a role, as India focussed more on expanding uranium-based reactors, especially after the 2008 Indo-US nuclear deal made international uranium easier to access and reduced urgency on the thorium cycle.
On top of this, underfunding and institutional inertia meant that thorium research stayed largely a long-term scientific goal, leaving projects like the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) stuck in the planning stage.
These factors have slowed a full commercial rollout, even though experimental and prototype work has continued.
A Startup Crosses The Finish Line
ANEEL’s potential advantages are tangible. It boasts much higher fuel burn-up compared to conventional uranium fuel, significant waste reduction, improved safety margins and compatibility with existing Indian reactor designs.
Some see it as a pragmatic acceleration of India’s thorium goals rather than a repudiation of them, but the optics are undeniable that the first commercially viable thorium fuel emerges from a private foreign enterprise rather than India’s public sector laboratories.
Science Meets Strategy
This story is about who reached the milestone first and why. Indian scientists spent 70 years building the foundation, and now a commercial team abroad has achieved what India’s institutions have not done so far.
This is not only a technical matter, it is a strategic one. When a country’s research ends up intellectual and experimental groundwork ends up being operationalised first by a private company abroad, it raises questions about policy decisions, risk-taking and how well institutions follow through.
Until India explains why commercial thorium fuel was never launched at home despite all the groundwork, this part of its nuclear story will stay unfinished. It is not a failure of science but a case of unresolved management and missed opportunity.
