Tugs start towing floating nuclear power plant across the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Chukotka in what is just the new beginning of a massive investment in new reactors for civilian and military purposes in the Russian Arctic.
After a year with reactors testing, painting and crew-training at Rosatomflot’s base in the Kola Bay, the «Akademik Lomonosov» today started the voyage towards her designated port in the Far East of Siberia.
Towing of the barge with two nuclear reactors fueled with uranium will take weeks. The route goes 4700 km across the Barents- and Kara Seas, through the Laptev Sea and further east to Pevek, one of the remotest port-towns on the planet.
Late August and September is the period with least sea ice.
In Murmansk the event was marked with big festivitas. Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant, that has been under construction since 2007, is a prestigious showcase for Rosatom, the state nuclear corporation.
Hoping to sell or lease similar concepts of nuclear-power units to other countries, Rosatom argues it is easy to move, safety is good, electricity costs are low and it produces energy without emitting climate gasses.
Russia isn’t first to launch a floating nuclear power plant. In the period from 1968 to 1975, the U.S. operated the MH-1A, a rebuilt ship, to produce electricity in Panama.....MUCH MORE
China is also pushing forward a plan that could include as many as 20 floating nuclear plants over the next decade, Bloomberg recently reported.
Showcase model
Greenpeace describes the project as a “nuclear Titanic” or a “Chernobyl on ice”....
Also at the Barents Observer:
Russian Doctors Rattled by Radiation Exposure Told to ‘Get to Work’ After Explosion
Which for some reason reminds me of Hermann Göring addressing his fellow putschers at München's Bürgerbräukeller that November night in 1923:
"Shut up. You've got your beer, haven't you?"
