Russia's Floating Nuclear Plants Under Fire From Greens

slashdotmsiriv writes with a link to an International Business Times article about Russia's plan to build floating nuclear power plants (a subject we discussed some time ago). The project is getting a lot of flack over possible safety problems from green groups. "The first floating power plant will be named 'Academician Lomonosov.' Mikhail Lomonosov was an 18th- century Russian scientist who achieved worldwide acclaim for his work in chemistry and physics and was founder of Moscow's state university. Customers could include Russian state-controlled gas giant Gazprom, the northern region of Chukotka and countries from Namibia to Indonesia, according to industry sources."

Comments

What are the risks vs. benefits?

[starseeker]

If you think about it, one of the most significant difficulties with building nuclear power plants is the "not in my backyard" problem. This could move the problem onto the oceans, perhaps the safest place for it. (This doesn't address the "any nuke is a bad nuke" arguments, but those are likely to prove impractical in a power hungry world in the long run...)

Benefits:

1) No immediate population centers. This gives any fallout time to disperse in case of a major failure.
2) Portability. Aside from the commercial advantages (shift reactors to high demand areas, no building costs for new locations/shutdown and cleanup costs for areas suddenly with low demand, etc) things like this could be moved off the coasts of disaster regions to provide major power to devastated areas quickly.
3) If they build it to be submersible, they can simply ride out any storm below the wave level. This means a lot of the extreme construction required for fixed-target plant defenses (storm and hostile) becomes less critical.

Risks:

1) Reliability engineering may prove a challenge for large scale plants. This is unknown at present, and I didn't see enough information handy as to studies done on the designs. You need to simulate the heck out of these things, and design failsafe (I wonder if it could be made provably failsafe...)

2) If a large amount of radioactive material gets dumped accidentally into a major ocean current (I should think this an unlikely failure mode with correct designs, but just suppose...), I'm not sure about the effects - better or worse than venting into the atmosphere? Will it simply sink and stay in one area, eventually recoverable?

Using truly modern designs, I am willing to believe the risk of major disaster can be made very small. (It seems like the human element was the least accounted for in older designs, so including that in the designs this time around should help...) This is a very interesting idea, and I think it deserves a detailed study to ascertain its risks, benefits, and whether it is practical with current technology.

Re:What are the risks vs. benefits?

[SixFactor]

To address your risk points:

1. Reliability. For any nuclear power plant of any design, the key to reliability is ensuring its structures, systems, and components (SSCs) are by themselves reliable (a chain only being as strong as its weakest link), and more importantly, qualified to meet rigorous standards during harsh (i.e., accident) operating conditions. In the U.S., the Maintenance Rule (10CFR 50.65) requires that reliability and unavailability records be always available for NRC audit. This is a big factor in why US plants have astronomical production records compared to even 10 years ago. Simply put, using proven components is a Good Thing(TM).

2. Radiation material release. Dilution is the solution to pollution. The risk of cancers (thyroid, bone) is already conservatively overestimated by using current methods, and conservative standards ensure these risks are further minimized. And let's be clear on this: any operating nuclear power plant periodically performs a controlled release of radioactive material into the environment during the course of its operation. These releases ensure that the activity levels are low, the wind is going in a proper direction, and that once diluted, are inconsequential with regard to risk. I'd like to say nuclear is pollution-free, but it I would be lying. But the nature and level of that pollution's release is tightly controlled so as to be safe.

You are absolutely correct about the effects of human intervention: if the machine was left alone, TMI-1's core collapse would not have occurred (operations belatedly closed off the source of the initial primary coolant loss - a stuck-open valve - but it also closed off the core's cooling path, which was through this valve); Chernobyl's catastrophic reactivity/steam explosion would not have occurred if operators did not conduct an ill-conceived experiment to maximize production.

Modern Western designs incorporate a great deal of lessons learned from the past. They incorporate a great deal of redundancy, or have features that allow an operator a great deal of time to take action, in case of an emergency.

One other thought: I'll call these "barge" nukes - are not a new concept. They were conceived in the 60's, and several US nukes in operation today were originally intended to be on barges, towed to a transmission site, and operated from there. Typically, these units had small containment volumes, which necessitated the invention of ice condenser systems to absorb the energy from a loss of coolant accident. The barge thing didn't fly, but these plants currently operate on land, but retain the ice condenser feature. Nice cold containments.

Re:What are the risks vs. benefits?

[DerekLyons]

If you think about it, one of the most significant difficulties with building nuclear power plants is the "not in my backyard" problem.

There is very little ocean that is a) within the (legal) control of the US that is b) not in somebody's backyard. Just for one example.
 
 

Benefits:

1) No immediate population centers. This gives any fallout time to disperse in case of a major failure.
2) Portability. Aside from the commercial advantages (shift reactors to high demand areas, no building costs for new locations/shutdown and cleanup costs for areas suddenly with low demand, etc) things like this could be moved off the coasts of disaster regions to provide major power to devastated areas quickly.
3) If they build it to be submersible, they can simply ride out any storm below the wave level. This means a lot of the extreme construction required for fixed-target plant defenses (storm and hostile) becomes less critical.

1. You should look at maps of the coasts of many nations - almost none are unpopulated. Either 3 or 12 miles away from the coast is the furthest they can be placed - not nearly far away enough for the fallout from a major accident.
2. You might as well view these as fixed installations - because they are only going to be placed where there's a need for them, they aren't cheap. (And niether are the enviromental impact studies, or the anchorages.) Power is far better moved via powerlines.
3. You don't even want to think about the complexity and difficulty involved it doing this.

Re:What about nuclear submarines?

[Harmonious Botch]

I'll bet that this is surplus from one of their submarines.

Even with the cost of Russian labor, it would be tricky just to move and install this thing, complete with power cables, mooring lines, etc for 200K. It therefore follows that they already have the reactor. Where do Russians get surplus reactors? From subs that aren't seaworthy any more.

Re:Surprising?

[TheRaven64]

You know, I'm still not convinced by the concept of 'nuclear waste.' The reason it's dangerous is that it's radioactive. If it's radioactive, that means it's a good energy source. A lot of so-called nuclear waste would work well as a power source for betavoltic generators or similar.

This is stupid

[ShooterNeo]

This is a positively idiotic idea. While I am for nuclear power, I am dead set against this implentation. I am for tracts of breeder reactors in the deserts of nevada, not something like this.

1. As anyone who has ever been aboard a boat or a ship knows, saltwater and the pounding from the sea shifting means an IMMENSE amount of maintainence has to be done, compared to keeping the same machines somewhere in a building on land. The tight passages that a ship has, or a floating vessel containing a power station, don't make things any easier. This means the salt water will rust all sorts of things, reducing the reactors life and making accidents more likely.

2. If in the event of a meltdown, the nuclear waste melts through the metal of the ship and drops into the ocean. While the 'china syndrome' may be FUD, (a melted nuclear pile going through rock til it hits groundwater - unlikely) this is very possible. Once in the ocean, the waste will be constantly polluting the seas through diffusion, and be extremely difficult to recover - how do you grab tons of highly radioactive slag off the seafloor?