Russia's 1st sea-borne nuclear power plant arrives in the Arctic

[Rhiannon12866]

Nuclear company says it could pioneer power source for remote areas, Greenpeace calls it 'nuclear Titanic'

Russia's first floating nuclear power plant arrived in the Arctic port of Murmansk over the weekend in preparation for its maiden mission: providing electricity to an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

The state company behind the plant, called the Akademik Lomonosov, says it could pioneer a new power source for remote regions of the planet, but green campaigners have expressed concern about the risk of nuclear accidents. Greenpeace has called it the "nuclear Titanic".

Russian state nuclear company Rosatom, which developed the floating power plant, said that it docked the unit in Murmansk on Saturday where it was towed from St. Petersburg, the city where it was built.

Nuclear reactors bobbing around the Arctic Ocean will pose a shockingly obvious threat to a fragile environment.
- Jan Haverkamp, nuclear expert

In Murmansk it will take on board a supply of nuclear fuel. It will then be towed to the town of Pevek in the Far East region of Chukotka, separated from the U.S. state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. It will start operations there next year.


Much more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/russia-floating-nuclear-power-plant-1.4673054



The Akademik Lomonosov is to be loaded with nuclear fuel in Murmansk, then towed to position in the Far East in 2019. (Dimitri Lovetsky/The Associated Press)

[caraher]

1. From what I've read, this is certainly no more risky than existing nuclear vessels

The reactor is a modified version of one already in use for nuclear-powered icebreakers. If anyone wants to fret about "nuclear reactors bobbing around the Arctic Ocean" it's been happening for years; this strikes me as far safer in port than carving out shipping lanes.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Thanks for the information!

I posted this as a follow up to a previous article:

Greenpeace escort protests world's first purpose-built floating nuclear power plant
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127117019

[caraher]

3. Thank you, too

It's been really hard for me to get hold of a serious analysis of whether the barge design poses any substantial difference in risk - really, there's just the one Greenpeace person making dark allusions to disaster and not much else beyond the similarly unpersuasive-to-skeptics bland assurances of the floating power plant's builder.

Apparently this is the tip of the (metaphorical) iceberg according to this piece in The Economist. A lot of the arguments are the same ones used in favor of small modular reactors (indeed, one can view these as SMRs-at-sea). And there are plans for underwater reactors:

AFTER the events of March 11th 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan, you might be forgiven for concluding that atomic power and seawater don’t mix. Many engineers, though, do not agree. They would like to see more seawater involved, not less. In fact, they have plans to site nuclear power plants in the ocean rather than on land—either floating on the surface or moored beneath it.

At first, this sounds a mad idea. It is not. Land-based power stations are bespoke structures, built by the techniques of civil engineering, in which each is slightly different and teams of specialists come and go according to the phase of the project. Marine stations, by contrast, could be mass-produced in factories using, if not the techniques of the assembly line, then at least those of the shipyard, with crews constantly employed.

The article mentions a French concept for underwater offshore reactors and Chinese plans to use floating reactors to provide power for the artificial islands they are creating in the South China Sea.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. That's a very informative article - I had never heard that before

And of course the panic is because of Fukushima - but it sounds like there's been a lot of progress since then. Bringing power to remote areas is necessarily a good thing, if they can ensure that it's safe. And it sounds like the journey has been a safe one.