First-ever floating nuclear power plant construction underway
Published 19 May, 2009, 18:36
The construction of the first floating nuclear power plant in history has kicked off in St Petersburg.
The plant, which represents a nonself-propelled 144-metres long vessel, will be used for the generation of both electricity and heat as well as sea water conversion at any poorly developed territory close to the sea. The vessel will have two nuclear reactors with a capacity of 35,000 kilowatts each. Constructors say the plant’s life span will be limited to 38 years, while every 12 years it will need to be reloaded.
The ambitious project got underway back in 2007 at the Sevmash factory in Russia’s Archangelsk region. However, the works were suspended soon, due to growing costs of the work and the factory’s overflow. On Monday, the works were resumed in St Pete at the Baltiisky Zavod open joint-stock company.
The floating nuclear power plant's exploitation will be started in the water area of Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka, on Russia’s Far East. It is planned to have the building completed in 2012. In the future, such facilities will be used for the provision of electricity to other remote areas.
Similar technologies were used in Russia in the 1990s, when nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers penetrated deep into the country’s eastern territories left without electricity, and improved the emergency situation.
”The creation of the first floating nuclear power plant is a step towards the creation of small nuclear energy sources, able to provide a sustainable energy production under specific conditions. These plants are irreplaceable in the areas with no other sources of energy,” Vladimir Grachev, adviser at Rosatom, told The Voice of Russia.
”Our long experience shows that floatable nuclear plants are ecologically secure. This is the future of the electric-power industry,” Grachev added.
In the near future, the Russian government plans to build seven more such plants with each costing around 10 billion rubles (around $ 310 mln). There are also plans to produce such plants for export.
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