IN THE 8th century, the Pallava kings who ruled southern India made Mamallapuram their main port on the Bay of Bengal. They had caves and temples carved from the granite hills behind the town, which is still a centre of pilgrimage. These structures are also inspiration for scientists working at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, whose stacks are visible from Mamallapuram. "If our ancestors could build temples that last 13 centuries, it should not be beyond us to build a reactor that lasts 60 years," says Baldev Raj, director of the IGCAR.
Raj's temple of the future, which is now being built, is a 500-megawatt, sodium-cooled, fast breeder reactor, which generates not only electricity but plutonium too. Many countries - the US, UK, France and Japan among them - have toyed with commercial-scale fast breeders, but their programmes have either crashed or been halted. Only Russia has run ...