The United States and India want to deepen cooperation in civilian nuclear power, U.S. officials say

Washington and New Delhi want to deepen cooperation in civilian nuclear power while focusing on the energy transition, a U.S. official said.

India and the United States signed a nuclear agreement in 2008 that provides for cooperation in the transfer of nuclear materials, nuclear trade, equipment, components and related technology, and nuclear fuel cycle activities.

Speaking about Indo-US cooperation at a virtual press conference on Monday, US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey R Pyatt said that going forward, I am very optimistic that we will continue to see India-US cooperation deepen cooperation among them. The United States and India are also in the civilian nuclear power sector. “

“We are progressing much faster than anyone expected twenty years ago, and our cooperation has become so broad and deep that it would not have been possible if we had not eliminated the nuclear bottleneck in our strategic relationship.”

Piatt said both countries had a shared interest in figuring out how to make progress on large conventional reactors that are expected to be part of the U.S.-India nuclear deal. But more importantly, fantastic new opportunities are emerging in small modular reactor (SMR) technology,” he added. Pyatt said he has seen strong interest in SMRs from Indian companies such as Adani, Tata, Reliance and Birla.

He added that they had all expressed interest in using small modular reactors as part of their larger decarbonization strategies. He further said, “The way India builds energy security is not dependent on any external player. That is what we are trying to achieve through the Mineral Security Partnership.” It is not about engineering China as part of the clean technology supply chain, he said role, but to reduce the situation in which we make ourselves almost completely dependent on a country that can take the steps that China has taken. Its export controls on spherical graphite, for example, use this resource dominance as coercive power against customers and countries around the world.

On encouraging renewable energy, he said: “As I said, I think this is an area where there is tremendous potential for cooperation between the United States and India, and I think we are on the right track.” Piatt said in January Visiting India, he spoke about energy transition, reliable supply chains, energy security and advancing business collaboration with private sector partners in India’s fast-growing clean energy sector. He said India is one of the most important energy relationships for the United States in the world.

He said he met Microsoft and renewable energy company Greenko Group during his visit to Hyderabad last month and said the progress in infrastructure was jaw-dropping.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from associated news agency – PTI)