Many nations have mulled the idea of a floating nuclear power plant and while countries like the United States and China have thought about offshore nuclear reactors, Russia has gone ahead and actually launched one. The country has launched what it claims to be the first floating nuclear power plant ever, it’s called the Academik Lomonosov. Based in the Baltic Sea, it will be capable of producing 70 megawatt of electricity.
The floating power plant will take its start from St. Petersberg form where it will be towed around Norway to a Russian town called Murmansk to fill up on nuclear fuel. The floating power plant will then make its way to the Arctic where it’s going to provide power for the oil industry town of Pevek. It’s also going to power a desalination plant and oil drilling rigs.
The ship has two nuclear reactors on board and is capable of providing enough power for a city of more than 100,000 people. The project reportedly cost $232 million and work began about a decade ago. It has received criticism from groups like Greenpeace, though.
Greenpeace nuclear expert Jan Haverkamp says that having “Nuclear reactors bobbing around the Arctic Ocean will pose a shockingly obvious threat to a fragile environment which is already under enormous pressure from climate change.”
Filed in . Read more about Nuclear. Source: rosatom.ru