Siting of nuclear power plants is always a complex issue. Placing the plant near the area where the electricity will be utilized has the benefit of less transmission losses and the drawback of often being in heavily populated areas. The plant has to be near a source of cooling water but that makes it prone to flooding in extreme weather and other disasters. The Russians have come up with a new solution to the problem of where to build nuclear plants.
Russia has announced that in three years it will build and turn on the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. The Akademik Lomonosov is intended to be the first in a whole fleet of floating Russian reactors. The floating reactors will supply power to coastal industrial areas, port cities and off-shore oil and gas platforms. The basis for the design of the floating reactor is the nuclear reactor powered ice breakers which the Russians have been using for fifty years. The floating reactor has no propulsion system and will have to be towed into place. There will be a crew of sixty nine people. The manufacturers state that the process of fuel enrichment on the vessels is in compliance with the non-proliferation regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
The two modified KLT-40 naval propulsion reactors on the floating power plants will be able to provide seventy megawatts of electricity which is sufficient for a city of two hundred thousand people. They can also be modified to produce two hundred and forty thousand cubic meters of fresh water on a daily basis which would be very useful for cities and industries located on arid coasts around the world. The new power plants are intended to allow economic development of distant regions of the Russian east coast and far north. The US, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia and Argentina have shown interest in the possible purchase of such plants from Russia.
The floating power plants are designed with a large margin of safety. The manufacturers claim that the plants can withstand tsunamis, hurricanes and collisions. Under normal operation, the reactors do not release any dangerous materials into the environment. The reactors are designed to be operational for forty years. At the end of their lifespan, the reactors will be returned to special facilities to be refurbished for other applications.
Despite the manufacturers’ assurances of safety in the face of any possible natural disaster, I have to wonder if they are being too optimistic. Maybe they are designed to be able to withstand what the manufacturers think will be the worst possible natural disasters but I have always been impressed by the ability of the natural world to exceed our expectation. There are rare freak waves that suddenly appear in the ocean without warning. For many years, rumors of such waves were dismissed as fantasy until satellite surveillance of the oceans finally captured live images of a giant wave suddenly appearing. These waves can be one hundred feet high. One of these might be able to sink or seriously damage one the new floating power plants as it is being towed to where it will be used. Terrorists might board the floating plant and threaten to blow it up either at sea or where it is moored offshore. A floating power plant cannot be as massive and stable as a power plant built on land. I also doubt whether security can be as good at sea as at a power plant on land. I do not think that these floating power plants are a good idea. I hope that I am wrong.
