India's Nuclear Fuel Shortage
India is suffering from a severe uranium fuel shortage due to a lack of domestic uranium, which has held up its ambitious nuclear energy program. Without uranium fuel, its existing reactors have run at partial capacity producing less electricity and new plants have been delayed repeatedly.
For 40 years India has managed its own nuclear energy and weapons infrastructure outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) framework, struggling to overcome its exclusion from international nuclear trade. The controversial U.S.-India nuclear deal could solve New Delhi's fuel shortage. But its longstanding dream of a sophisticated nuclear economy based on a thorium fuel cycle and advanced breeder reactors may remain a pipe dream.