Russia's First Floating Nuclear Power Plant Turns On, Set To Replace Coal
Kenneth RapozaSenior Contributor Dec 19, 2019
Lomonosov, took 10 years to build at a cost of $ 232 million. The unit, with the electric generation capacity of roughly 70 megawatts, can power a city of 100,000 people. The barge is off the cold, rocky tundra of Chukota along the North Pacific Ocean, a Russian state with a population of roughly 50,000. The ancestors of the Eskimos, Aleuts and the Chukchi all unusited the region, now home to more polar bears, reindeer and puffin penguins than people.
Now it's home to what Russia thinks may become a trend in fossil-free fuel — small, floating nuclear power plants.
The new power plant will replace the technologically obsolete Bilibino nuclear power plant in the region, built in 1974 with the capacity to generate 48 megawatts. And a coal-fired power plant will also be shut down. Bilibino will be closed before the end of this year.
Next year, the barge will be connected to the main city there, Pevek, in order to provide heat. The average high temperature there is -11 Fahrenheit in January and February. Fewer than 5,000 people live there.
Russia hopes the power plant and all the development and infrastructure maintenance that surround it will create conditions for accelerated socioeconomic development of Chukotka and will become one of the key infrastructure elements in Russia's development goals for its northern sea route.
“The task for next year is to complete the commissioning of the facility for fueling commercial operation,” Andrei Petrov, the company's general director, said in a press release.
The construction of Akademik Lomonosov barge began in 2008 at Russia's Baltic Shipyard, where it was built by Rosatom subsidiary OKBM Afrikantov, a nuclear engineering firm. It consists of two KLT-40S nuclear fission ship reactors used in Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers.
The first reactor installation was completed last December.
Since the energy of Chukotka is subsidized, the cost of energy for consumers will not change.
Russia likes to refer to the Akademik Lomonosov as the world's first floating nuclear power plant. It is, for that part of the world. But in the late 1960s, the US government had their MH-1A Sturgis —also a floating nuclear power vessel — which was used to generate the electricity required for the improvement of the Panama Canal.
Besides being the only floating nuclear power plant in the world today, Russia's Akademik Lomonosov will also be the northernmost nuclear power station once Bilibino is off line.
Rosatom said it wants to build at least seven floating nuclear power plants. The state nuclear power company is currently working on its second generation floating of nuclear vessels, making them smaller and more powerful.
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