Russia’s Floating Nuclear Power Plant Begins 2,650-Mile Sea Voyage

From hardware.slashdot.org

An anonymous reader shared this article about the Akademik Lomonosov “powership” — Russia’s new 459-foot (140-meter) floating nuclear power station (with two 35-megawatt nuclear reactors).

It’s begun a three-week, 2,650-mile voyage to the Arctic port town of Pevek — where it will be replacing another plant that’s being decommissioned.The Russian project is the first floating nuclear power plant since the U.S. MH-1A, a much smaller reactor that supplied the Panama Canal with power from 1968 to 1975. Environmentalists have criticized the project as inherently dangerous and a threat to the pristine Arctic region. Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has dismissed those concerns, insisting that the floating nuclear plant is safe to operate. Rosatom director, Alexei Likhachev, said his corporation hopes to sell floating reactors to foreign markets. 

Russian officials have previously mentioned Indonesia and Sudan among potential export customers.

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