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Small Nuclear Power Plants To Dot the Arctic Circle

Posted by Soulskill on from the ubiquitous-radioactive-polar-bears dept.

Vincent West writes with news of a Russian project currently underway to populate the Arctic Circle with 70-megawatt, floating nuclear power plants. Russia has been planning these nuclear plants for quite some time, with construction beginning on the prototype in 2007. It's due to be finished next year, and an agreement was reached in February to build four more. According to the Guardian: "The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia's biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years."

3 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. ahhh by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    lose control of one of those, and Russia owns all of the arctic. Just kidding.

    That is not a bad idea. I have thought that the west should be putting up more small reactors to run things like Manufacturing as well as our electric trains. Do some 10-20 MW next to a maglev or just old fashion hi-speed train like Frances, and you have a fairly efficient none polluting train.

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  2. Re:The US Had a bunch of these during the Cold War by AllynM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There was SL-1:
    http://www.radiationworks.com/sl1reactor.htm

    They learned the hard way that you should not build a reactor so small that it requires *manual* withdrawal of control rods. By manual I mean a guy hunkered over the core with his hands on the rod itself. End result: said man impaled by said rod - to the ceiling.

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  3. U.S. Army shipboard nuclear reactor by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The US used to have a 45MW shipboard nuclear power plant on the USS Sturgis, a converted Liberty ship. It was used to power the Panama Canal locks during a period of low water at Gatun Dam, the usual power source. The U.S. Army had a whole range of small reactors running in remote locations from 1952 to the early 1970s. The main problem was that they never built enough of them to justify the support and training infrastructure required.