Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE), only the second American company to have bagged an export licence from the US Department of Energy to sell nuclear technology to India in nearly two decades, will partner NPTC Ltd, the country’s largest power utility, in the development of thorium as an alternative to uranium for fuelling nuclear reactors.The Board of state-owned NTPC is learnt to have cleared a minority equity investment in CCTE in a strategic early stage participation effort in this niche area, which could potentially mark another step toward closer cooperation between India and the US on atomic energy at a time when bilateral trade relations are still in a limbo.The NTPC stake infusion proposal is subject to clearances from the Ministry of Power. The minority investment by NTPC, sources said, is aligned with its objective of setting up 30GWe (giga watt electric) of atomic energy capacity by 2047 and exploring an entry into the nuclear fuel cycle in a way that it aligns with India’s broader strategic objectives in the nuclear sector. Queries sent to NTPC on the issue did not elicit a response.Also Read | India moves towards unlocking nuclear energy. The hard work begins nowThe move also signifies the government’s plan to explore the deployment of a thorium-based fuel for India’s existing fleet of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), which could, in turn, help buttress the country’s energy and fuel security.Earlier in December, Parliament had passed the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025, which marked a major shift in how India’s tightly-controlled nuclear power sector will be governed in the coming years.For the first time, the legislation enables private players to enter the operations side of this critical sector, including the possibility of foreign participation in the future. It also envisages a role for private entities in areas such as fuel management, which had remained under tight public-sector control for decades. The advantage with the thorium fuel produced by the Chicago-based company is that it can be shipped to India and directly loaded on to PHWRs.Also Read | SHANTI Bill is India’s second shot at nuclear energy leadershipThorium, the radioactive metallic element named after the Norse god, has been a long standing hope for India’s true energy security. It has been touted as an alternative to uranium since 1954 by India’s policymakers because it’s more abundant, produces lesser amounts of long-lived radioactive waste (that have a long half life) and potentially lowers the proliferation risk.Story continues below this adFor India, which has little uranium reserves but has abundant deposits of thorium, the latter has been part of a long-term strategy for reducing dependence on imported nuclear fuels.CCTE’s founder and CEO Mehul Shah is of Indian origin. While thorium deployment has been predicated on the idea of new reactors being designed in the last leg of India’s 3-stage nuclear programme to run on this fuel, which could entail reconstructing the country’s nuclear power fleet from the ground up, Shah and his company have approached this differently as part of Clean Core’s broader research of advanced nuclear fuel cycles, whereby it has created a new type of fuel that blends thorium with a more concentrated type of uranium named HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium). This can then be used in India’s pressurised heavy-water reactors that make up the bulk of the country’s existing fleet.Also Read | SHANTI Bill: How India is overhauling its nuclear power sectorClean Core’s new fuel, called ANEEL or Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life, can be potentially deployed in the country’s PHWRs at scale. The combination of thorium with small amounts of enriched uranium and the promise of its use in existing or new PHWR reactors promises to enhance India’s energy security by using domestically available thorium, and improving safety and proliferation resistance. It could also significantly reduce nuclear waste. Additionally, the new fuel promises cost savings by delivering greater energy output within existing safety margins and lowering the operating costs of current reactors.CCTE is learnt to have figured in assurances extended by the Department of Atomic Energy and the country’s nuclear regulator, the AERB, to the US between March and May 2025, and a licence was granted to it in August from the US DOE.Story continues below this adEarlier, on March 26, the DoE had cleared New Jersey-based Holtec International’s application for specific authorisation with respect to the restrictive regulation that is referred to as “10CFR810” (Part 810 of Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954) for transfer of technology to Indian entities.According to nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar, given that India is able to build large PHWR capacity with imported uranium as fuel, the country has the possibility of using this reactor capacity for conversion of thorium to fissile uranium through irradiation of thorium along with HALEU uranium fuel combination in the country’s PHWRs at scale.Also Read | In its 12th year, Modi government set new benchmarksThis enables the launch of the thorium phase (the third phase of India’s three-stage nuclear programme) earlier, without having to wait for build-up of required fast breeder reactor capacity in the second phase. PHWRs comprise the first phase of the 3-stage programme.The used fuel from these PHWRs, the mainstay of India’s nuclear power programme, can then be recycled to set up additional power generation capacity, including through the new-age molten salt reactors or MSRs (nuclear fission reactor with molten salt as coolant or fuel). This will enable faster energy independence from imported nuclear fuel, Kakodkar told The Indian Express.Story continues below this adA former Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, he is now Chancellor of the Homi Bhabha National Institute and Chairman of the Rajiv Gandhi Science & Technology Commission.Thorium itself is not a ‘fissile’ material like uranium, which means that its atoms are not inherently unstable enough for an extra neutron to easily split the nuclei and release energy. But it is classified as ‘fertile’, and can soak in neutrons and transform into the fissile material uranium-233, which can then be split to release energy.The Department of Atomic Energy’s 3-stage power programme envisages a pathway to utilising India’s abundant thorium reserves – found in coastal sands on the beaches of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat, and in the inland riverine sands of Jharkhand and West Bengal – to generate electricity. The second stage of the 3-stage plan involves the Fast Breeder Reactors or FBRs, where operational progress has been slow.Given the impediments being faced in the large-scale deployment of FBRs, Kakodkar said a solution lies in looking at fuel cycle options instead of reactor options and that India needed “to be able to establish, as early as possible, self-sustaining (or near enough) thorium based nuclear power generation capacity sufficient enough… This, in turn, requires reactor capacity large enough to convert the required quantity of fissile uranium from thorium in time.”Story continues below this adExplainedThe alternative fuelIndian policymakers have long considered thorium an alternative to uranium because it’s more abundant, produces lesser amounts of long-lived radioactive waste and potentially lowers the proliferation risk. India has little uranium reserves but abundant deposits of thorium, mostly on the beaches of Kerala and Odisha .Delays in FBR deployment is bad news for India’s nuclear programme, given that these reactors envisaged the use of recycled fuel while breeding much more fissile fuel. By irradiating thorium along with HALEU in the country’s pressurised heavy-water reactors (which use heavy water as a coolant and moderator) at scale, one can make up for delays in the second stage, Kakodkar said.The world over, most leading nuclear players such as the US, Russia, France and South Korea specialise in building light water reactors or LWRs, where normal water is used as coolant and moderator. While the SHANTI Act opens the door for LWR-based imported reactors to be set up, leveraging existing PHWRs does present itself as an important diversification from the import risk.Pressurised heavy-water reactors are said to be more suited to handling thorium because heavy water – an isotope of water that has an extra neutron on the hydrogen atom – absorbs fewer neutrons during the fission process, increasing the efficiency of the fission reaction by allowing more neutrons to be absorbed by the thorium.Currently, there are over 45 PHWRs operating worldwide: 19 in India, 17 in Canada, three each in Argentina and South Korea, and two each in China and Romania, according to International Atomic Energy Agency data.