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Russia Launches Floating Nuclear Power Plant That's Headed To the Arctic (npr.org)
Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom launched a massive floating nuclear power plant over the weekend. It's the first nuclear power plant of its kind and it's headed to an Arctic port, reports NPR. From the report: Called the Akademik Lomonosov, the floating power plant is being towed at a creeping pace out of St. Petersburg, where it was built over the last nine years. It will eventually be brought northward, to Murmansk -- where its two nuclear reactors will be loaded with nuclear fuel and started up this fall. From there, the power plant will be pulled to a mooring berth in the Arctic port of Pevek, in far northeast Russia. There, it will be wired into the infrastructure so it can replace an existing nuclear power installment on land. Russian officials say the mandate of the Akademik Lomonoso is to supply energy to remote industrial plants and port cities, and to offshore gas and oil platforms.
It will take more than a year for the power plant to reach its new home port. The original plan had called for fueling the floating plant before it began that journey, at the shipyard in central St. Petersburg -- but that was scuttled last summer, after concerns were raised both in Russia and in countries along the power plant's route through the Baltic Sea and north to the Arctic. "The nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that can generate up to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy during its normal operation," Rosatom said. "This is enough to keep the activity of the town populated with 100,000 people."
It will take more than a year for the power plant to reach its new home port. The original plan had called for fueling the floating plant before it began that journey, at the shipyard in central St. Petersburg -- but that was scuttled last summer, after concerns were raised both in Russia and in countries along the power plant's route through the Baltic Sea and north to the Arctic. "The nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that can generate up to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy during its normal operation," Rosatom said. "This is enough to keep the activity of the town populated with 100,000 people."
It's head to the Arctic
The US had a nuclear power plant on a barge in the Panama Canal Zone in the 60s and 70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
US also had a few "portable" land-based reactors powering military bases and a station in Antarctica.
Not the first (the USS Sturgis, back in the mid 60s, was the first floating nuclear power plant), and it's actually pretty small at 70 MW (a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is about 3 times that power). But I guess "Russia Russia Russia!" demands media so we can keep the public thinking about Trump and Russia?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
We are head to the Arctic.
I just saw this on the Google news feed: Russia just launched a floating nuclear power plant, headed to the Arctic.
I can't help but comment on this headline: Russia's 'Nuclear Titanic' Heads West, Raising Fears of 'Chernobyl on Ice' to say the "Chernobyl on Ice" sounds like the worst Ice Capades theme ever.
(Apologies to those that take the potential destruction of the environment and Earth seriously.)
I'll add that "Nuclear Titanic" sounds like a good name for a James Cameron movie or documentary.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Only much much slower. OMG nukes!
I guess those don't count as floating nuke power plants. Because they're not powering cities or some such. Nimitz class aircraft carriers have 6000+ crew, more than many small towns.
Other than "kinda cool" blerb.
- They've already got nuke power up there.
- They have TONS of nuke subs
- They've got tons of military ships / weaponry up there so there's no chance this is some smuggling run.
Is it solely a story because "muh russia controls everything"?
With quality articles like this, how will we have time to discuss incredibly important topics like whetehr Hollywood and tech are "too pale"?
In 1961 US Army converted an old Liberty ship called the SS Charles H Cugle into a floating power plant back in 1961, pretty much with exactly the purpose: to provide a mobile electricity generation station for remote areas. The newly renamed MH-1A Sturgis was towed to the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 to 1975, then mothballed.
The Russian project is much more powerful, employing a pair of nuclear icebreaker reactors to generate a total of 140 MW, 14x the power of the old Sturgis. to obtain this kind of power in a compact ship-borne package, the KLT-40 reactors use nearly more highly enriched uranium than is typical in land based reactors: 40% to 90% rather than 3%-5%.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I want a smaller one on wheels please!
1 MW or even 0.5 MW will be plenty for my use case. Since I live in Alaska, the steam output will come handy too.
Any ideas for this kind of market? What is the smallest nuclear electricity generator even built?
It would be cool to have one for camping trips.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
The russians are a bunch of well known murders to get their way...be a REAL shame if that nuclear power plant sank on them in retaliation.
From what I understand russians attempted to poison the CEO of British Petroleum oil and tried to replace all western or UK board members with russians to take over the company.
One might think a multi billion dollar oil company would have the resources to pop a hole in their giant floating nuclear dingy.
any nuclear powered navy ship is by definition a floating nuclear power plant. The Orion project was a flying nuclear power plant.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Oh yeah? Well I've got a steam engine that's tits and ass for the Caribbean. So there.
Head-on: Apply directly to the Arctic; BeauHD: Apply directly to unemployment.
I know where you can get 1.21 gigawatts in wheels. It goes 88 MPH.
I always said that nuke plants should be in the sea.
That way, if they are attacked, or if anything goes wrong, you can just dump the whole thing into the ocean.
Which, pretty much, is an incredibly safe way to deal with it. Sure... a surrounding... what? 50m? 100m of water won't be good for you, but site it far enough away from land and it's a fabulous, and free, safety screen.
This is just a mini reactor, but there's no reason you couldn't build an oil-rig of any size, within territorial waters, stick a plant on it, run a cable to it, and dump it into the ocean quite safely if something happened (very rare).
1 billion cubic metres of saltwater tend to be quite handy when in need of a radiation shield and/or additional cooling.
are head to artic
Eh? What are these people smoking, just use the damn watt for power output.
So when something unexpected happend, like a few years back in Japan, you don't have the waste slowly seeping through the ground possibliy a little bit leaking into the ocean, but when something bad happens, the all the radioactive stuff is immediately in the water and you have a global problem. Nothing to worry about. We've thought about everything.... Right!
Spent fuel can simple be dropped straight into the ocean....like on an old train toilet. Once done the entire reactor is sunk without any need of expensive cleanup.
In other news, the rogue, terrorist state of Israel continues the development of it's secretive nuclear weapons program whilst continuing to deny weapons inspectors entry to the Negev nuclear research center in Dimona, Israel.
And I'll form the head to the Arctic!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Time to poison an unknown distance of ocean capable of spreading radiated water through the out a large area.
Oh well, the survival of the species is overrated anyhow.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Rather than having a dangerous nuclear reactor, a much better and environmentally friendly solution would be to have hundreds of leaking oil tankers carrying fuel to power a conventional power plant. They should do this tens of times a year. They should also build leaking holding tanks that will have to be abandoned when people leave.
Wait, Russia has nuclear aircraft carriers?
Russia has air craft carriers? (plural?)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There was no collusion with Russia. The Dems are sore that Cooked Hillary lost. Outlaw and jail Dems. Crooked Dems.
But this distraction by her husband has NOTHING to do with his financial corruption disguised on her name.. oh no!
Why would you want the people who cooked themselves on the land to be doing it for everyone on the high seas?
we've floated a few of these, along with desalination plants, medical assets, and even logistical support, to disaster areas across the globe. Self propelled too!
Starting with the Nimitz class and evolving to the Ford class :)
Other than it is not outfitted for war, this isn't too different than the USA aircraft carriers which are also floating power plants. In fact the USA has used them to power different coastal areas afflicted by disasters in several instances in the past.
"can generate up to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy..."
That should be 70MW of electric POWER.
50Gcal/hr comes out to almost 58MW of heating power, which they have to remove from the boat lest the heat exchangers, and probably other components, overheat.
I guess they can just dump the heat into the water where they dock and introduce tropical fish there, and charge to snorkel with the fish. :-)
What a Horrible Idea! Does anyone know what would happen if there was a Chernobyl style event in the Artic, over water??? A meltdown would cause an enormous explosion when it hit the water, throwing hundreds of tons of radioactive material and radioactive water into the atmosphere, which the jet stream would then blow it across most of the United States, thus poisoning two thirds of our country with radioactive fallout. A really smart dictator might realize this, and even plan an "Accident". "Oops, my bad, sorry I contaminated your country, but it was an accident, not an act of war. Sue us." Think about it. The damage done, what does the US do? With the whole world watching, do we start WW3 for revenge? Impossible to prove not an accident with the nuclear plant destroyed. Even if not intentional, it seem that starting up a large nuclear reactor over the water is a real hazard. Not the same as the small reactors used in naval vessels.
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