Russian floating nuclear power station
Encyclopedia
Floating nuclear power stations (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

: плавучая атомная теплоэлектростанция малой мощности, АТЭС ММ - lit. floating combined heat and power
Combined Heat and Power
Combined Heat and Power may refer to:* Cogeneration* Combined Heat and Power Solar...

 low-power nuclear station) are vessels projected by Rosatom that present self-contained, low-capacity, floating nuclear power plant
Nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. As in a conventional thermal power station the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity.Nuclear power plants are usually...

s. The stations are to be mass-built at shipbuilding
Shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...

 facilities and then towed to the destination point in coastal waters near a city, a town or an industrial enterprise. Although the world's first floating nuclear power station was MH-1A
MH-1A
thumb|right|300pxMH-1A was a pressurized water reactor and the first floating nuclear power station. One of a series of reactors in the US Army Nuclear Power Program, its designation stood for mobile, high power.-History:...

, the Rosatom project represents the first mass production of that kind of vessel. By 2015, at least seven of the vessels are supposed to be built.

History

The project of Russian floating nuclear power stations started in early 2000s. In 2000, the Ministry for Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (Rosatom) chose Severodvinsk
Severodvinsk
Severodvinsk is a city in the north of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina River, west of Arkhangelsk. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance . Municipally, it is incorporated as Severodvinsk Urban Okrug. The city was founded as...

 in Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast
Arkhangelsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It includes the Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya, as well as the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea....

 as the place for building the first floating power generating station. Sevmash
Sevmash
JSC PO Sevmash is a shipbuilding company based in Severodvinsk, a port city on Russia's White Sea. The name Sevmash is an abbreviation of Severnoye Mashinostroitelnoye Predpriyatie , i.e. "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise". Sevmash is the largest shipbuilding enterprise in Russia and today the...

 was appointed as general contractor. Construction of the first floating nuclear power station, Akademik Lomonosov
Akademik Lomonosov
Akademik Lomonosov is a non-self-propelled vessel to be operate as the first Russian floating nuclear power station. The ship was named after Academician Mikhail Lomonosov.-History:...

, started on 15 April 2007 at the Sevmash Submarine-Building Plant in Severodvinsk. However, in August 2008 construction works were transferred to the Baltic Shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
The Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...

 in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, which is responsible also for construction of the next vessels. Akademik Lomonosov was launched on 1 July 2010.

Technical description

The floating nuclear power stations are non-self-propelled vessels with a length of 144.4 metres (473.8 ft), width of 30 metres (98.4 ft), height of 10 metres (32.8 ft), and draught of 5.6 metres (18.4 ft). The vessel has a displacement of 21,500 tonnes and a crew of 69 people.

Each vessel has two modified KLT-40 naval propulsion reactors
Soviet naval reactor
Soviet naval reactors have been used to power both military and civilian vessels, including:* Nuclear submarines:** Attack submarines.** Cruise missile submarines.** Ballistic missile submarines.* Nuclear icebreakers:** Soviet icebreaker Lenin....

 together providing up to 70 MW of electricity or 300 MW of heat, enough for a city with a population of 200,000 people. It could also be modified as a desalination
Desalination
Desalination, desalinization, or desalinisation refers to any of several processes that remove some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water...

 plant producing 240,000 cubic meters of fresh water a day. Another modification will be supplied by two ABV-6M reactors with a capacity of around 18 MWe (megawatts of electricity). Also, 325 MWe VBER-300
VBER-300
The VBER-300 is a proposed compact Russian pressurized water reactor of 300-MWe or more generating capacity designed for remote locations. In particular, it has been proposed for use on the Russian floating nuclear power station .The reactor has been proposed for use in water desalination as well...

 and 55 MWe RITM-200 reactors have been mentioned as potential reactors to use for the floating nuclear power station.

Contractors

The hull and sections of vessels to be built by the Baltic Shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
The Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...

 in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. Reactors are designed by OKBM Afrikantov and are assembled by Nizhniy Novgorod Research and Development Institute Atomenergoproekt (both part of Atomenergoprom
Atomenergoprom
Atomenergoprom is a 100% state-owned holding company that unites Russian civil nuclear industry. It is a part of the Rosatom State corporation.-History:...

). The reactor vessels are produced by Izhorskiye Zavody. Kaluga Turbine Plant
Power Machines
OJSC "Power Machines" is a Russian energy systems machine-building company founded in 2000...

 supplies the turbo-generators.

Fueling

The floating power stations need to be refueled every three years while saving up to 200,000 metric tons of coal and 100,000 tons of fuel oil a year. The reactors are supposed to have a lifespan of 40 years. Every 12 years, the whole plant will be towed home and overhauled at the wharf where it was constructed. The disposal of the nuclear waste will be organized by the manufacturer and supported by the infrastructure of the Russian nuclear industry. Thus, virtually no radiation traces are expected at the place where the power station produced its energy.

Safety

Environmental groups are concerned that floating plants will be more vulnerable to accidents and terrorism than land-based stations. They point to a history of naval and nuclear accidents in Russia and the former Soviet Union, including the Chernobyl disaster
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow...

 of 1986.

Russia does have 50 years of experience operating a fleet of nuclear powered icebreaker
Nuclear powered icebreaker
A nuclear powered icebreaker is a purpose-built ship for use in waters continuously covered with ice. Icebreakers are ships capable of cruising on ice-covered water by breaking through the ice with their strong, heavy, steel bows...

s that are also used for scientific and Arctic tourism expeditions. The Russians have commented that a nuclear reactor that sinks, such as the similar reactor involved in the Kursk
Russian submarine Kursk explosion
On 12 August 2000, the Russian Oscar II class submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea after an explosion. The investigation showed that a leak of hydrogen peroxide in a torpedo led to explosion of its fuel, causing the submarine to hit the bottom which in turn triggered the detonation of further...

explosion, can be raised and probably put back into operation. At this time, it is not known what, if any, containment structure
Containment building
A containment building, in its most common usage, is a steel or reinforced concrete structure enclosing a nuclear reactor. It is designed, in any emergency, to contain the escape of radiation to a maximum pressure in the range of 60 to 200 psi...

 or associated missile shield will be built on the ship. The manufacturers believe that an airliner striking the ship would not destroy the reactor. According to MosNews, a Russian news outlet, there is no way an airliner striking the ship would destroy the reactor.

The 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents
2011 Japanese nuclear accidents
This is a list of articles describing aspects of the nuclear shut-downs, failures, and nuclear meltdowns triggered by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.-Fukushima nuclear power plants:* Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant...

 due to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...

 provide a sharp contrast to some comparative safety advantages of floating nuclear plants. Land based nuclear facilities must be designed for severe ground accelerations due to earthquakes. Many are placed close to a seacoast for access to sea water for cooling. Coastal locations tend to be the areas of maximum tsunami damage, requiring protective design and risk of catastrophic failure. A floating facility, near a coast but not in shallow water, can avoid the worst problems of earthquakes and tsunamis. In deep enough water, tsunamis have minimal effect on floating structures, and earthquakes transmit much less force to them. In the event of an accident, terrorist attack, or other calamity, it is essential to keep the core cooled, usually by covering it with water. An emergency measure can be to lower the core into the sea. In the worst case, accidental sinking or intentional scuttling will keep sea water on the core and prevent atmospheric release - again, especially in deep enough water. Finally, retired land based nuclear power plants can be difficult and expensive to clean up, including safety hazards of contamination. A floating plant is towed to a remote location that handles multiple such tasks.

A 2004 book on Russian floating nuclear power stations was written by a number of authors, including "Vladimir Kuznetsov, formerly of the Russian Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear and Radiation Safety; Alexey Yablokov, a biologist, former environmental advisor to the Russian president and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy; Yevgeney Simonov, senior engineer at the Obninsk nuclear power plant; Vladimir Desyatov, an engineer who worked in nuclear submarine construction; and Alexander Nitikin." The book concludes that such stations are impossible to protect against terrorism, that safety cannot be guaranteed ("The only question is how serious the emergency and its consequences."), and that an accident would be uniquely difficult to contain. Besides that, the book argues that such stations would be uneconomic.

Locations

Floating nuclear power stations are planned to be used mainly in the Russian Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

. Five of these will be used by Gazprom
Gazprom
Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Its headquarters are in Cheryomushki District, South-Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow...

 for offshore oil and gas field development and for operations on the Kola
Kola Peninsula
The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...

 and Yamal
Yamal Peninsula
The Yamal Peninsula , located in Yamal-Nenets autonomous district of northwest Siberia, Russia, extends roughly 700 km and is bordered principally by the Kara Sea, Baydaratskaya Bay on the west, and by the Gulf of Ob on the east...

 peninsulas. Other locations include Dudinka
Dudinka
Dudinka is a town and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It was the administrative center of Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, which was merged into Krasnoyarsk Krai on January 1, 2007. It is a port in the lower reaches of the Yenisei River,...

 on the Taymyr Peninsula
Taymyr Peninsula
The Taymyr Peninsula is a peninsula in the Far North of Russia, in the Siberian Federal District, that forms the northernmost part of mainland Eurasia and Asia...

, Vilyuchinsk
Vilyuchinsk
Vilyuchinsk is a closed town in Kamchatka Krai, Russia, located on the Kamchatka Peninsula about across Avacha Bay from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Population: -History:...

 on the Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...

 and Pevek
Pevek
Pevek is a town and Arctic port in Chaunsky District, part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. After Anadyr and Bilibino it is the third largest town in Chukotka. Population: Municipally, the town is subordinated to Chaunsky Municipal district and together with Apapelgino and Yanranay, is...

 on the Chukchi Peninsula
Chukchi Peninsula
The Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula , at about 66° N 172° W, is the northeastern extremity of Asia. Its eastern end is at Cape Dezhnev near the village of Uelen. It is bordered by the Chukchi Sea to the north, the Bering Sea to the south, and the Bering Strait to the...

. In 2007, Rosatom signed an agreement with the Sakha Republic to build a floating plant for its northern parts, using smaller ABV reactors.

According to Rosatom, 15 countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia, Cape Verde and Argentina, have shown interest in hiring such a device.

Further reading

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