Aerial view of the Akademik Lomonosov, Russia’s floating nuclear power plant. Photo: CNN
Aerial view of the Akademik Lomonosov, Russia’s floating nuclear power plant. Photo: CNN

By Mary Ilyushina
30 June 2019

Murmansk, Russia (CNN) – Next month, a floating nuclear power plant called the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed via the Northern Sea Route to its final destination in the Far East, after almost two decades in construction.

It’s part of Russia’s ambition to bring electric power to a mineral-rich region. The 144-meter (472 feet) long platform painted in the colors of the Russian flag is going to float next to a small Arctic port town of Pevek, some 4,000 miles away from Moscow. It will supply electricity to settlements and companies extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka region.

A larger agenda is at work too: aiding President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious Arctic expansion plans, which have raised geopolitical concerns in the United States.

The Admiral Lomonosov will be the northernmost operating nuclear plant in the world, and it’s key to plans to develop the region economically. About 2 million Russians reside near the Arctic coast in villages and towns similar to Pevek, settlements that are often reachable only by plane or ship, if the weather permits. But they generate as much as 20% of country’s GDP and are key for Russian plans to tap into the hidden Arctic riches of oil and gas as Siberian reserves diminish. […]

Project engineers say they’ve learned the lessons of Fukushima.

“This rig can’t be torn out of moorings, even with a 9-point tsunami, and we’ve even considered that if it does go inland, there is a backup system that can keep the reactor cooling for 24 hours without an electricity supply,” said Dmitry Alekseenko, deputy director of the Lomonosov plant.

However, experts of Bellona, an NGO monitoring nuclear projects and environmental impacts, say 24 hours might not be enough to prevent a disaster should a tsunami land the rig among towns with two active nuclear reactors aboard. [more]

Russia plans to tow a nuclear power station to the Arctic. Critics dub it a ‘floating Chernobyl’