I often find myself thinking about how human society can truly become self-reliant. And when I talk about self-reliance, the first step that comes to my mind is this: how can we ensure a continuous supply of electricity on Earth? It is not as if the world has been functioning without electricity. Of course it has not. But in generating it, we have exploited the Earth too much. We have destroyed forests, extracted endlessly, and damaged more than we like to admit. I am not saying this as a reformer, and I am not a climate activist either. I simply want the electricity that reaches every corner of the world to reach there without causing harm to someone else in the process.

So far, much of the world has generated electricity by burning coal. And when coal burns, harmful gases are released—carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and other emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere. Naturally, some people would say that the answer is solar energy. And to some extent, yes, solar energy is part of the answer. But if we are being honest, it cannot be the complete answer to this dream by itself. Solar power is not equally practical everywhere. It needs a lot of land. In deserts, it can work very well, but what about cold regions where sunlight is weak or limited for a large part of the year? And even where it works, solar energy is generated during the day. What happens when clouds gather, when it rains, or when night comes? Solar panels do not solve that problem on their own.

Of course, the extra electricity generated during the day can be stored for later use. But then we need batteries. And most of the batteries available today are lithium-ion batteries, which do not last forever. Their life is limited because repeated charging and discharging gradually damages the material inside them. The anode and cathode stop performing as they once did. And these batteries do not appear out of nowhere. To make them, we need mining—not only for lithium, but also for cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite, and copper. Mining these materials creates pollution in many ways. Lithium extraction, especially where brine evaporation is used, consumes enormous amounts of water. Other metals require heavy extraction, often linked with deforestation and ecosystem damage. So when people say solar energy is completely clean, that is not the whole truth. Wind power too depends on certain conditions. It cannot produce energy in the same way all the time.

Then what remains? What can meet the demand for electricity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, while also being cleaner and more dependable? That is when the mind turns toward nuclear energy.

The first time I heard the word “nuclear” was in Class 8, in Social Science, when I read about how America dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War. At that age, I thought nuclear power could only mean destruction. I had no idea that the same word could one day make me think about electricity, stability, and the future of civilization.

I know why I felt like writing about energy now. Recently, when tensions rose in the region and the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted, petroleum supplies slowed down, and even in India there were reports of LPG-related stress and shortages. Around the same time, at the start of April, bad weather caused power cuts in my area. These may seem like different events, but together they made me think about one thing: India, and really the whole world, needs reliable electricity around the clock. No country should remain so dependent on another for something as basic and essential as energy.

This is where nuclear energy begins to look different. Unlike solar and wind, it does not depend on sunshine or weather. Compared to coal, the energy density is astonishingly high. A tiny uranium pellet, no bigger than a fingertip, can produce as much energy as a ton of coal. A 1000-megawatt nuclear plant can be set up in roughly one square kilometre, while solar would need many times more land to generate a similar level of power. So the advantage is real.

What interested me even more was understanding how a nuclear plant actually generates electricity. In a coal-based thermal power plant, coal is burned to heat water, the water turns into steam, the steam spins a turbine, and electricity is generated. In a nuclear plant, the end process is similar—heat, steam, turbine, electricity—but the source of heat is different. Uranium is not burned like coal. Instead, the atom itself is split. And when that happens, an enormous amount of heat is released. That heat turns water into steam, the turbine rotates, and electricity is produced.

After understanding this much, one question naturally came to my mind—and maybe it comes to anyone’s mind after reading about nuclear power. If nuclear energy is so powerful, so dense, so reliable, and relatively clean compared to fossil fuels, then why are India and the world not embracing it much faster?

The answer, of course, lies in the risks and the realities. If a nuclear accident happens, like Chernobyl or Fukushima, the consequences can be devastating. Whether because of human error or natural disaster, radioactive material can escape. Even when a plant runs normally, radioactive waste is still produced. That cannot be ignored. Still, the picture is not as simple as fear alone. A large part of spent fuel can be reprocessed and reused in some nuclear systems, and scientists are also exploring ways to reduce the life and toxicity of long-lived radioactive waste. One method often discussed is transmutation, where radioactive waste is bombarded in such a way that heavier atoms break into smaller ones, reducing the time for which they remain dangerously active. The idea itself is remarkable. It reminds me that even our most frightening technologies can sometimes be managed with patience, science, and discipline.

Then comes the question of fuel. Uranium is found in the Earth’s crust and is present in countries like Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, and India as well, though India does not have it in the same abundance as some others. But what India does have in large quantity is thorium. And this is where things become truly interesting, because thorium may be one of the biggest reasons India’s nuclear journey matters so much.

India has a large share of the world’s thorium resources, which is why the country has long paid serious attention to thorium-based nuclear research. But thorium has one difficulty: unlike uranium, it is not naturally fissile in the way needed for direct use in a reactor. Uranium contains a small percentage of U-235, which is naturally fissile, so when it is introduced into the reactor environment, the chain reaction can begin more directly. Thorium does not behave like that. It first has to be converted into a usable fissile material, namely U-233.

The more I tried to understand this, the more fascinating it became. In simple terms, thorium is not used directly as fuel in the same way uranium is. Inside a reactor system, thorium-232 can absorb neutrons and, through a series of reactions, eventually turn into uranium-233. And uranium-233 is fissile. That means it can be used to generate power. So in a way, thorium becomes part of a fuel cycle where one material helps create another, and that new material then sustains the reaction. This is what makes the thorium fuel cycle so important in India’s long-term nuclear vision.

It was Dr. Homi Bhabha, the father of India’s nuclear programme, who laid out this path decades ago. His three-stage nuclear programme was not just a scientific plan; it was a way of thinking about India’s future. Since India had limited uranium but abundant thorium, it made sense to imagine a system where the country would begin with uranium, move into breeder reactors, and eventually use thorium more fully. That vision still feels extraordinary to me.

India’s fast breeder work at Kalpakkam is part of that larger story. The Fast Breeder Test Reactor there began long ago, and now the country’s much more advanced Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, with a capacity of 500 MW, has finally reached a major milestone. On 6 April 2026, the PFBR achieved first criticality. For the country, this is a matter of pride, because first criticality means that the chain reaction in the reactor became self-sustaining for the first time.

And yet, this pride comes with unease too. The PFBR was initiated many years ago. It was expected to be completed far earlier than it actually was. But instead of becoming operational around the early target years, it took about two decades to reach this stage. That delay matters. It matters because every year of delay raises the project cost. It matters because when a technology is slow and expensive to build, even a promising idea begins to lose public confidence. This is one of the harsh realities of nuclear energy: it may be powerful, but it is not quick. It demands patience, money, regulation, and precision.

This is where the mathematics of energy becomes important. Solar plants are cheaper to install per megawatt. Nuclear plants are far more expensive upfront. On paper, that makes solar look like the obvious winner. But paper does not tell the whole story. The real question is not only how cheaply power can be installed. The real question is: how reliably can it be delivered? A nuclear plant can operate with a very high capacity factor, often around 90 percent, which means it can supply electricity steadily for most of the year. Solar has a much lower capacity factor because it depends on daylight and weather. Coal is more stable than solar, but it comes with serious environmental costs. So the comparison is not as simple as cost per megawatt. It is also about consistency, land use, long-term dependence, and strategic security.

And that brings me back to the world we are living in. Summers are becoming harsher. Power cuts still happen. Geopolitics is tense. Fuel routes can be threatened. If a country wants reliable electricity for homes, transport, cooking, industry, and future growth, then baseload power cannot be ignored. Renewables absolutely have a place. In fact, they must expand. But if the dream is uninterrupted electricity at scale, then nuclear energy will remain part of the conversation, whether people like it or not.

At the same time, nuclear energy cannot be defended blindly. If India truly wants to move toward a more nuclear-based future, then delays like the PFBR’s cannot become normal. If each major project takes twenty years to reach a basic milestone, then even a brilliant long-term vision will keep arriving too late. That is the real challenge. Not whether nuclear energy is powerful enough, but whether our institutions are capable of building it in time.

In the end, perhaps the answer will not come from choosing only one source. A combination will almost certainly be needed. Solar, wind, hydro, storage, nuclear—each has a role. But when I think about uninterrupted power, about strategic independence, and about the kind of civilization we want to build, I cannot help feeling that India, and the world too, will eventually have to look more seriously toward nuclear energy.

Dr. Homi Bhabha showed us the road nearly seventy years ago. It is a little sad to write this, but it feels as though we are still standing at the very first turn of that road.

Peace.

Thank you,

Raja Ranjan