Floating Nuclear Power Station

angrysponge writes " Russia to Build World's First Floating Nuclear Power Station for $200,000. I don't know what impresses me more, the engineering chutzpah or low-ball pricetag." From the article: "The mini-station will be located in the White Sea, off the coast of the town of Severodvinsk (in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia). It will be moored near the Sevmash plant, which is the main facility of the State Nuclear Shipbuilding Center. The FNPP will be equipped with two power units using KLT-40S reactors. The plant will meet all of Sevmash's energy requirements for just 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt. If necessary, the plant will also be able to supply heat and desalinate seawater."

Comments

Re:First?

[kcb93x]

Plus, with the sheer low cost ($200,000 for an output 1/50th of that of a normal Russian nuclear power plant...so the cost of these to equal a normal Russian nuclear plant would be $10,000,000) I think that $10 million is less than the cost of a normal nuclear power plant. Perhaps we should look at this design as well, I mean, evalute it for chrissakes!

We put nuclear power plants to sea all the time. Our aircraft carriers, our submarines, for the most part have gone completely nuclear. Why not, the military uses them. Let's take a look at this. 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt...daaaannnnng.

Heck, even if we don't use these as permanant plants, how about having a few of them as floaters, for rent to cities/owners of the power grid as needed? Oh, having an excessive heat wave $CITY ? Here, for $x.xx/kilowatt, with a minimum purchase of $XX,XXX, we'll add power to your grid.

Seriously...let's take a look at this.

Re:European Water

[Fordiman]

The article doesn't quite have it right.

There are at least fifty unclassified floating nuclear power stations around the world today. They're called Navy aircraft carriers.

Not to mention the hundered or so location-classified nuclear submarines floating about. Not Boomers, though those are generally nuclear powered as well. Nuclear spy subs, armed with simple chemical warheads.

(Note: I'm an ex Navy Nuclear Machinist Mate, and my statements are about as authoritative on this as you're going to get on Slashdot)

There have been no nuclear power accidents on navy vessels. None. And I would not be surprised if the powerstations are of a modified naval design. There are a number of ex navy engineers floating around and while they're not allowed to give away operational secrets (amount of fuel, specific design, etc) to civies, there's no regulation about designing a derivative plant, as long as the important things are changed.

Which, of course, you'd have to do to change from a nuke drive plant to a nuke amp-only plant. Different torque, heat, pressure requirements.

"When" there's a meltdown is a misnomer. Anymore, you don't get to put a nuclear design into production with any cutting of the corners (the number one cause of design failure is not building exactly to design). Modern fission plant designs are "Walk-away safe", meaning that the can run, unmanned, until their fuel runs out.

Additionally, if anything goes out of tolerance - the steam getting too hot, the coolant clogging, a sensor going out, anything - the mediator rods drop and the heavy water is flushed for normal water, then drained (effectively shutting the plant down until it can be "manually" restarted).

And don't count on some inscrupulous company deciding to surreptitiously cut corners and build under spec; the threat of meltdown on land is too great for any company to take. Threatening it on water is *far* worse, even with the salt in the water.

Which brings the question of your concern. A large volume of stagnant seawater (about 100 galons per gram of radioactive material for a full-on meltdown) is sufficient to break alpha and beta radiation down to non-dangerous levels in the space of a few years. For alpha, the salts capture the neutrons pretty readily becoming heavy but low-radiation isotopes, while the neutrons' kinetic energy is distributed by the movement of said salt ions (ie: the atoms don't shatter because of the weak lattices formed between salt ions and water ions). Something similar happens with beta radiation, but causing some greater problems; trace amounts of posionous chemicals are produced in the process. Since the actual mass involved is so big to so small, the ppm count is low, but it's still potentially problematic.

Meanwhile, in the ocean, you don't have stagnant water, you have moving water. Kinda like moving in a pool cools you off more quickly, the motion of the water helps to finish the fallout before it reaches your shores.

In short: I wouldn't worry about a well-off-shore plant melting down, and even if it did, the fallout would hardly be global. I would, however, want it a few miles away from *my* coast, just in case.