Following the publication of a news report, “Nuclear Power from Thorium: No Hallelujah Moment Yet for HALEU as Fuel,” by R. Ramachandran in The Wire on March 8, 2026—which drew on a research article, ‘On the use of high-assay low-enriched uranium–thorium fuel cycles in pressurised heavy water reactors’, published in Current Science by K. P. Singh, Amit Thakur and Anurag Gupta—we received an email from Mehul Shah, Founder and CEO of Clean Core Thorium Technology, containing what he described as a ‘technical rebuttal’ of the story and a copy of a letter written by Koroush Shirvan of MIT to Current Science identifying so-called ‘methodological deficiencies’ in the research article relied upon by the The Wire for its report. Shirvan’s letter asks Current Science to withdraw the research paper forthwith.In the interests of a debate on this important subject, The Wire is publishing Shah’s email as well as the ‘technical rebuttal’ he sent, followed by R. Ramachandran’s response to this ‘rebuttal’, so that our readers, which includes the scientific community, can judge the matter for themselves.Readers may note that the article by K.P. Singh et al is still available on the Current Science website, and that the editors of the publication – India’s premier scientific journal – had already rejected the demand by Shirvan (and presumably by Shah and his company) that their research paper be withdrawn when Shah wrote to The Wire.§Mehul Shah’s email:I write to express serious concern regarding the article published in The Wire on March 8, 2026, titled “Nuclear Power from Thorium: No Hallelujah Moment Yet for HALEU as Fuel.” The article references Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) and my name while presenting several unsubstantiated and misleading assertions regarding thorium–HALEU fuel technology. It is troubling that neither the author nor the editorial team contacted us for comment or factual verification prior to publication.Publishing technical claims about a company and its technology without basic fact-checking with the concerned party represents a significant lapse in editorial diligence. The article contains multiple factual inaccuracies, misinterpretations of scientific literature, and unsupported assertions that risk misleading readers and policymakers on a matter of national strategic importance.It is also important to note that the ANEEL fuel concept has already undergone significant regulatory scrutiny. Following successful testing announcements at Idaho National Laboratory in the United States, the Department of Atomic Energy issued a Letter of Intent expressing interest in demonstrating ANEEL fuel bundles in an operating Indian power reactor. Subsequently, India’s nuclear authorities—including the Department of Atomic Energy, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board—provided formal assurances to the United States government regarding the peaceful and safeguarded use of the technology. Based on these assurances and after detailed review, the United States Department of Energy granted CCTE authorization under 10 CFR Part 810 for technology transfer related to the ANEEL fuel concept to India.Given that India’s nuclear establishment expressed interest in demonstrating the technology and provided assurances enabling international regulatory approval, it is difficult to reconcile why its viability is now being questioned through media commentary rather than transparent scientific discourse. If the technology was credible enough for formal assurances, on what technical basis is public doubt now being raised?For your review, we have attached a detailed technical rebuttal addressing each of the claims made in the article. Also attached is the February 4, 2026 letter from Dr. Koroush Shirvan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to the editor of Current Science, requesting withdrawal of the paper and identifying fundamental methodological deficiencies in the study heavily relied upon by The Wire article.Taken together, the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in the article create a misleading narrative regarding thorium fuel technologies and CCTE’s ANEEL program and fall short of basic journalistic standards of accuracy, verification, and fairness.Technical rebuttal to an article published in The Wire – Nuclear Power from Thorium: No Hallelujah Moment Yet for HALEU as Fuel.1. Incorrect Description of Collaboration “collaboration between Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE), a nine year-old Chicago-based company founded by Indian-origin Mehul Shah, and Centrus Energy Corporation, a Maryland-based enriched uranium supplier.” This statement is incorrect. Centrus Energy is not involved in the development of CCTE’s ANEEL fuel technology. While Centrus is a supplier of enriched uranium products, it has no direct role in the design, engineering, or development of the ANEEL thorium–HALEU fuel concept. Characterizing the relationship as a “collaboration” in the development of ANEEL fuel technology is therefore factually inaccurate. 2. Incorrect Claim that No Reactors Use HALEU “No operational power reactor that uses HALEU as fuel currently exists anywhere in the world.” This statement is demonstrably false. Operational reactors using HALEU fuel already exist today. Examples include Russia’s KLT 40S reactors and China’s HTR-PM reactors. Both reactor types utilise fuel enriched above the traditional 5% enrichment limit typically associated with commercial light-water reactors. The existence of these reactors contradicts the article’s claim and indicates a lack of factual verification. 3. Incorrect Claim that No Detailed Physics Analysis Exists “It must, however, be noted here that this claim by CCTE… is not based on any detailed physics analysis for the Indian PHWR design that has either been done by the company or by any other foreign research group.” This assertion is incorrect. Detailed reactor-physics analyses of thorium–HALEU fuel concepts for PHWR-type reactors have been conducted and published in the open scientific literature. Such studies have appeared in peer reviewed scientific journals and prestigious international nuclear engineering conference proceedings associated with the American Nuclear Society and other recognised nuclear research forums. Examples are given below: https://www.ans.org/pubs/transactions/article-59916/https://www.euronuclear.org/scientific-resources/conference-proceedings/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2024.113113 These studies include detailed neutronics analysis, fuel performance modeling, and reactor physics simulations relevant to thorium–HALEU fuel systems. The article’s claim that no such analysis exists is therefore incorrect. 4. Misrepresentation in the Current Science Paper “This recent work has taken the earlier studies to the next level by comprehensive cluster-level optimization, along with inclusive core-level analysis… and it is the first-ever full core-level performance analysis of the fuel in PHWRs.” The publication cited in the article has been formally challenged due to serious methodological deficiencies. Professor Koroush Shirvan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote to the editor of Current Science on February 4, 2026 (attached) requesting withdrawal of the paper. The concerns identified include the absence of a methods section explaining how the claimed “core level analysis” was conducted, presentation of numerical values without documented calculation methods, references that do not correspond to the reported results, and reliance on internal or inaccessible reports rather than verifiable scientific literature. Some references cited in the paper cannot be located in the public domain and do not correspond to the values reported. Given these deficiencies, presenting the paper as a definitive technical validation of conclusions regarding thorium–HALEU fuel performance is misleading. 5. Misinterpretation of Uranium Resource Utilisation “in terms of resource utilization, one actually ends up using more mined-NU per unit of energy by using HALEU-Th in PHWRs than NU.” This claim is inconsistent with the findings of the cited publication itself. Figure 1 in the referenced “Current Science” paper indicates uranium savings when HALEU–thorium fuel is used compared with conventional natural uranium fuel. The article therefore appears to misinterpret or misrepresent the findings of the study it cites.6. Mischaracterisation of Fuel Cycle Considerations “HALEU-Th (or ANEEL) is viable only in a once-through cycle scenario.” ANEEL fuel was intentionally designed for irradiating thorium at scale while at the same time realising additional economic, safety, shrunk spent fuel inventory and proliferation resistance benefits in the present day PHWRs. These benefits can be realised by both, countries such as Canada, Romania and others, which have adopted a once-through fuel cycle as well as India which has adopted closed fuel cycle. As a part of development of three stage programme in India, development of recycle of thorium-uranium fuel is inevitable. Whenever that happens, HALEU-thorium spent fuel can get adopted almost seamlessly. The criticism therefore reflects a misunderstanding of the design objectives of the fuel and is misplaced. 7. Misleading Discussion of Spent Fuel Storage “one has to contend with the problem of interim and long-term storage or disposal of SNF – an issue absent in the NU-based closed cycle strategy for thorium utilization.” This statement is technically incorrect. All nuclear fuel cycles—including natural uranium fuel cycles—require management of radioactive materials during storage and disposal. Even closed fuel cycles involve storage of high-level waste and significant decay heat considerations. With PHWRs the storage, recycle and processing high level waste is significantly more expensive since the heavy material quantities involved are larger. Thorium–HALEU fuel systems typically produce much reduced spent fuel volume (by >85%) and much shorter-lived long-term radiotoxic inventory compared with conventional natural uranium fuel cycles. Suggesting that storage challenges are absent in natural uranium fuel cycles is therefore misleading. 8. Misrepresentation of Fuel Cost “Based on the reported cost per kg of HALEU… simple arithmetic tells us the much higher cost of producing 1 GWd of energy.” The cited publication does not support this claim. The study refers specifically to front-end fuel costs, not the total cost of electricity generation. Electricity generation costs depend on many factors including fuel utilisation efficiency, burn-up, waste management costs, and backend fuel cycle costs.By removing the reference to front-end costs and presenting the conclusion as a statement about total energy cost, the article misrepresents the study’s findings 9. Incorrect Statement Regarding Burn-Up Milestone “The second milestone of 45 GWd/t burn-up in August 2025 would have helped to further bolster these ill-conceived tie-ups.” This statement is speculative and factually incorrect. The 45 GWd/t burn-up milestone had already been achieved and publicly announced in August 2025 by CCTE/INL. The article provides no evidence to support the insinuation made, and the language used does not reflect the standards expected in professional journalism. 10. Unsupported Claims Regarding Industry Collaboration “companies… sought to collaborate with CCTE without doing a proper technical reality check with the Indian nuclear establishment.” Numerous technical interactions and evaluations involving experts in India and in other countries have taken place. Suggesting otherwise without supporting evidence is speculative and misleading. Conclusion Taken together, the statements examined above demonstrate multiple factual inaccuracies, misinterpretations of scientific literature, and unsupported assertions. These errors create a misleading narrative regarding thorium fuel technologies and the ANEEL fuel concept. Given the importance of nuclear energy policy and the strategic relevance of thorium utilisation for India, accurate representation of scientific work and technical developments is essential for informed public discourse.§R. Ramachandran’s reply to Mr. Mehul Shah’s rejoinder to The Wire article, ‘No hallelujah moment yet for HALEU as fuel’The main burden of the rejoinder from Mr. Mehul Shah, the CEO of the American company Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE), to my article in The Wire, which is chiefly based on the research paper published in the journal Current Science by Dr. K. P. Singh and associates of the Reactor Research Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), hinges on the demand of withdrawal of the paper made to Editor, Current Science, by Dr. Koroush Shirvan, an Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), USA, based on his critique of the published work. Mr. Shah is being highly disingenuous in this as he does not at all acknowledge the fact that the demand by Dr. Shirvan had been rejected in early February itself after his critique had been examined by a committee set up by the editor of Current Science. This fact, which The Wire has learnt from an email from the journal editor, must be known to Mr. Shah as Dr. Shirvan also heads the fuel design team at CCTE, which designed the fuel assemblies for the HALEU-Th fuel ANEEL. Given the hype around the fuel ANEEL developed by CCTE, it is quite possible that, as Mr. Shah has claimed though without providing any proof, the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) may have issued a letter of intent (LOI) to test the fuel in an operating Indian PHWR. In this context, the following answer given by the Hon’ble Union Minister for S&T, Dr. Jitendra Singh, on February 11, 2026, to a specific Parliamentary question on deployment of ANEEL in the Indian nuclear programme should be noted:“The natural Uranium Oxide based fuel will continue to be deployed in our current fleet of PHWRs, representing an optimised and efficient utilisation of our limited Uranium resources in a sustained manner through the 3-stage program. With regard to waste, India is following a closed fuel cycle where the spent fuel is reprocessed to recover valuable fissile material for use in our second stage of nuclear program.“India has a well-articulated 3 stage program that allows optimal utilization of our limited Uranium resources for attaining long term energy security through deployment of Thorium in a self-sustaining 3rd stage supported by a second stage involving Fast Breeder Reactors.” He made no mention even of testing ANEEL in the Indian PHWR even though the query was specifically about the possible use of the fuel in the Indian programme.Even if one accepts Mr. Shah’s claim, a ‘specific licence’ under 10 CFR 810 only allows transfer of “technology”, which under Part 810 being defined as “Assistance or technical data required for the development, production or use of any plant, facility, or especially designed or prepared equipment for the activities”. In the particular case of CCTE this possibly is for ‘Nuclear fuel [ANEEL] fabrication, including preparation of fuel elements, fuel assemblies and cladding thereof’”. It must be emphasised that Part 810 does not authorise the applicant CCTE to export any equipment or nuclear material. For that the applicant will have to secure a separate specific authorisation from the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) under Part 110, which CCTE does not yet have.In the light of the above, Mr. Shah’s statement about end-use assurances by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) does not seem to make sense since neither of them is involved in the manufacture or production of anything, nuclear fuel in particular. If at all a DAE agency that would be involved in the use of the technology to produce ANEEL fuel is the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), from which no end-use assurance would seem to have been obtained. So, Mr. Shah’s claims do not seem to gel. In any case, securing end-use assurances from the intended destination entities for any export of a controlled technology or item is standard procedural requirement under the U. S. export control regulations. Therefore, this in itself does not mean anything. The viability of ANEEL fuel is not being questioned, as Mr. Shah says, solely by media commentary alone, but backed by research work that has been published in a reputed journal following a peer review. And the purported technical rebuttal to the published paper has been squarely rejected by the journal.We give below point by point reply to Mr. Shah’s rejoinder to the article in The Wire that was essentially based on the published research work:1. Incorrect Description of CollaborationHere Mr. Shah’s is trying to nitpick in the use of the word ‘collaboration’ in the article to characterise the relationship between Centrus Energy and CCTE. But consider the headline of the press release issued by Centrus Energy on December 14, 2021. It said: “Centrus Energy and Clean Core Thorium Energy Advance Work to Develop Next Generation Fuel for Existing and New Reactors”. Further, the release in its text said, “Under the MOU signed earlier this year, Clean Core and Centrus are collaborating to promote the use of ANEEL advanced nuclear fuel in CANDU reactors around the world, together with other PHWRs (emphasis added).”2. Incorrect Claim that No Reactors Use HALEUThe statement in the article that no operational power reactor that uses HALEU as fuel currently exists in the world is based on information dated February 11, 2026, about HALEU given in the website of the World Nuclear Association (WNA). To quote the webpage on HALEU, “Applications for HALEU are today limited to research reactors and medical isotopeproduction. However, HALEU will be needed for many advanced power reactor fuels, and more than half of the small modular reactor (SMR) designs in development.”I stand corrected with regard to what Mr. Shah has pointed out about the existence of two operational reactors that use HALEU: Russian KLT-40S and the Chinese HTR-PM. The former is a pressurised water reactor powering the floating nuclear power plant Akademik Lomonosov and is derived from the reactor KLT-40 (using highly enriched uranium) powering Tamyr-class icebreakers. The latter is a High Temperature Gas Cooled pebble-bed Generation IV SMR designed originally as a demonstration plant that began commercial operation only in December 2023. Mr. Shah would, therefore, do well to also correct the WNA’s web page on HALEU. In any case, no operational power reactor exists that uses HALEU-Th as the fuel. Also, it should be emphasised that the existence of these does not alter the main thrust of the article that HALEU-Th ANEEL fuel is not suitable for the present Indian PHWR design and the 3-stage nuclear programme of the country.3. Incorrect Claim that No Detailed Physics Analysis ExistsThe Wire stands by its statement which said, “It must, however, be noted here that this claim by CCTE, as also in other commentaries, is not based on any detailed physics analysis for the Indian PHWR design that has either been done by the company or by any other foreign research group.”(Emphasis added for the purpose of this reply.)Perusing the references cited by Mr. Shah in his rejoinder that such analysis exists clearly shows that his statement is patently false. The very title of the November 2025 paper by Mr. Shah and others at CCTE along with Dr. Shirvan, which was published in the Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, says “Reactor Physics Analysis of High Burnup Thorium-HALEU Fuel for CANDU 600”, and CANDU 600 reactor is not the same as the Indian PHWR design. The other by N. Read and V. Raffuzzi, which was published in June 2024 in the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design, itself makes the following admission: “The patent [of Shah et al., 2023] refers extensively to the 220 MWe Indian PHWR reactor (as well as CANDU 600) as a candidate system. It is worth noting that any high-burnup fuel (either with or without thorium) could have variable enrichment and/or burnable absorber loadings to optimise performance for any given host reactor. However, the single-tube lattice study employed in this work cannot give much insight into reactor-specific effects so this aspect will not be considered further.” (Emphasis added for the purpose of this reply). And what this work could not do is precisely what the BARC scientists have done. 4. Misrepresentation in the Current Science PaperMr. Shah’s point in this regard is that, since the original paper itself had been challenged by Dr. Shirvan, the conclusions that the The Wire article had drawn based on the paper have no validity and are misleading. The outright rejection of Dr. Shirvan’s challenge by the journal that published the paper has, however, now rendered Mr. Shah’s argument totally vacuous. 5. Misrepresentation of Uranium Resource UtilisationFig. 1 of the Current Science paper is based on lattice level analysis of un-optimised configurations (without any radial gradation of fissile content or burnable absorber loadings). However, since these configurations are not usable in a reactor, it does not give a complete picture of uranium utilisation. When this optimisation is done with core level simulations, the uranium utilisation reduces substantially. For an optimised configuration, there is only a marginal improvement in uranium utilisation as shown in the paper. All aspects of resource utilisation in different fuel cycles are clearly depicted in Fig. 2 of the paper.Further, if all factors of fuel cycle and reactor operation are considered — including the burn-up losses in the long transition phase — then the mined uranium will be more in PHWRs fuelled with HALEU-Th than with natural uranium. This has been elaborated at different places in the paper (particularly para 2, p.130). The statement in the first bullet point under ‘Conclusions’ on p. 135 — “Thorium in PHWR-HALEU-Th cycle acts as an absorber, having a negative impact on the full utilisation of U-235 for the generation of energy” — reiterates this. 6. Mischaracterisation of Fuel Cycle ConsiderationsThe Current Science paper has clearly argued why there is no advantage in using HALEU-Th fuel in a closed cycle due to the insignificant plutonium and the unusable uranium-233 extracted from the discharged fuel. Both these aspects are respectively essential to pursue the 2nd and the 3rd stages of the 3-stage programme. Very interestingly, this has, in fact, been endorsed by Dr. Shirvan, the designer of the fuel, himself. The article in The Hindu newspaper of March 13, 2026 has quoted him saying, “HALEU-Th fuel is not meant for reprocessing. So to compare it to more reprocessing friendly fuel forms is quite misleading”. This totally contradicts what Mr. Shah is saying. So, it is Mr. Shah’s argument that is misplaced, and not the Current Science paper or its reportage in The Wire article. 7. Misleading Discussion of Spent Fuel StorageIt is a well-known that the spent fuel from PHWRs (with natural uranium fuel) can be reduced to insignificant level by multiple recycling of discharged fuel in fast reactors as is envisioned in India’s 3-stage program. By using HALEU-Th fuel the spent fuel generation (per unit energy production) will be reduced in a once-through cycle but will still be much higher than that in the case of a closed cycle with natural uranium. 8. Misrepresentation of Fuel CostOf course, the simple arithmetic referred to in The Wire article is only for the front-end cost, which for HALEU-Th – with the high cost of enriched uranium being a significant factor – is several times than with natural uranium. As for the waste management issue raised by Mr. Shah, there is no data on its cost for the HALEU-Th fuel. Further, if one takes into account the costs of changing the reactor design and safety systems to enable the fuel to be used in the Indian PHWR, the 26% reduction in the worthiness of shutdown devices (as stated in the paper), the extended non-equilibrium phase during the transition period, cost of thorium, additional processing, etc, it can safely be said that energy cost will be higher.Then there is also the additional cost of a HALEU fuel cycle support infrastructure. In this context, the following statement from the December 2023 report of the U. S.-based Nuclear Innovation Alliance is relevant: “The major supply chain challenge with creating new HALEU production capacity is that it requires the development of new fuel cycle infrastructure and facilities, specifically HALEU enrichment capacity, HALEU deconversion capacity and HALEU fuel fabrication facilities. Additionally, the HALEU fuel supply chain will require new transportation infrastructure between supply chain steps that can accommodate higher-enriched uranium products and fuel than are currently available commercially.” It may be pointed out here that several agencies are now engaged in developing new HALEU transportation packages in view of the greater safety and security needs. Also, the IAEA is still to evolve a suitable regulatory framework for transporting HALEU fuel, based on which the Indian regulator AERB will have to evolve its own guidelines. 9. Incorrect Statement Regarding Burn-up MilestoneIt is not clear what Mr. Shah is trying to say here. The Wire article is also only saying that the milestone of 45 GWd/t burn-up was achieved in August 2025.10. Unsupported Claims Regarding Industry CollaborationWhile technical interactions and evaluations with Indian and foreign experts, as Mr. Shah claims, may have taken place, they do not seem to include experts from the Indian nuclear establishment. Because, if they had, the findings of the BARC scientists with regard to the feasibility of using HALEU-Th fuel in Indian PHWRs, which now form part of the January 2026 Current Science paper, would have been conveyed to them. The tie-ups of the NTPC and L&T are indeed ill-conceived as they were not based on any comprehensive analysis of using HALEU-Th in the Indian PHWRs as both the companies do not have the expertise to carry out the required analysis themselves.§Note: Mehul Shah’s email was received on March 11 and R. Ramachandran’s response on March 29. Publication was delayed because of the technical nature of the contents, the length of the material and the pressure of the news cycle.