to Aleksandr Voznesenskii, shipyard general director, the Academician Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) will be the first vessel belonging to the new line of FNPPs that can provide energy, heat and water to remote and arid areas of the country, with mass production scheduled for the near future. The Academician Lomonosov’s
technology is based on the USSR’s construction of nuclear-powered icebreakers. The Russian media is speculating that the FNPPs will first be used in remote areas of the northeastern Arctic Russia and the Far East, as these regions currently suffer from a lack of energy, slowing their development. Each 21,000-ton vessel will have two “modified KLT- 40 naval propulsion reactors” that will provide up to 70 megawatts of electricity or 300 megawatts of heat, sufficient for a city with a population of 200,000. Additionally, the FNPPs
can provide water desalination services capable of supplying up to 240,000 cubic metres of fresh water per day. Academician Lomonosov’s keel
was laid in April 2007 at the Sev- mash shipyard in Severodvinsk on the White Sea, but the project was subsequently transferred to the Baltiskii Zavod shipyard. The Aca- demician Lomonosov’s 21,500-ton hull was subsequently launched in 2010, although construction work was frozen in mid-2011 because of bankruptcy proceedings against the shipyard. State-owned United Shipbuilding
Corporation subsequently acquired the company, and Rosenergoatom, which operates 10 nuclear power plants, signed a new contract with the Baltiskii Zavod shipyard for the Academician Lomonosov’s comple- tion. The Academician Lomonosov has 69 crew and specialists. Omi-
nously, the Academician Lomonosov has no engines, so it needs to be towed. The Baltiskii Zavod shipyard
stressed that the Academician Lomonosov and its successors are all designed with a safety margin exceeding all possible threats, which makes its nuclear reactors invulnerable to tsunamis and other natural disasters, and that the ships meet all the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and do not pose a threat to the environment. Perhaps referring to Soviet-era
nuclear icebreakers is not such a hot idea, at least for those with his- torical memories. Not a reassuring development for the Soviet Arctic environment.
n
The factory further states that 15 nations, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia and Argentina, have already expressed interest in buying a floating nuclear power plant as shown below under construction.
Photo: Internet 37
September 2013
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