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Floating Nuclear Power Plant Seized By Court 122

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the smokers-sighted-nearby dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The world's first nuclear barge has been impounded while still under construction — but not because of looming safety or environmental concerns. The shipyard's parent companies are embroiled in bankruptcy proceedings, and Russia's state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, was worried that a creditor would end up with this valuable nuclear asset, and asked the bankruptcy court to seize the barge to protect it."
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Floating Nuclear Power Plant Seized By Court More

Floating Nuclear Power Plant Seized By Court

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  • Ship: Noun. "A hole in the water into which one pours money."

  • Siezed? (Score:3, Funny)

    by cepler ( 21753 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @02:27PM (#37110584) Homepage Journal

    Siezed? O RLY? Maybe Seazed! Or...maybe.... Seized!

    • I before E except after C... Oh wait. Damn English!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jdpars ( 1480913 )
        I before E except after C... except in words derived from the Latin word "capio." It's complicated.
        • My version: "I before e, except after c, or when sounded like a, as in neighbor or weigh, ... with weird, scientific and foreign exceptions."

          Note that weird, scientific and foreign all fall into the weird category. Caffeine is an example of scientific. A stein is an example of a beer-containing foreign exception, and therefore the quintessential German example. On the other hand, keiretsu is not an exception, despite how Sean Connery pronounced it in Rising Sun. (It's sounded like a, if you pronounce it

        • There are 21 times as many words in the English language that break this "rule" than do not.

          It's weird how some of these sayings have come into being with no basis in truth, isn't it? I can only that society would break down if this was the case for other sayings.

          No doubt the veil of ignorance is being torn down as I type.

    • Yeah, well, what do you expect from an article that keeps misspelling nucular.

  • Time for your head to explode. (Score:5, Funny)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @02:30PM (#37110608) Journal

    From TFA:

    In 2009, Rosatom announced plans to send a fleet of floating nuclear power stations to the Arctic, where they could power deep-sea drilling for oil and gas.

    There's so much wrong in that meme that I'm going to have to go lie down and hope I forget it happened.

    • What's wrong with that? It combines the impressive safety of nuclear fission with the emission-free awesomeness of fossil fuels AND the completely non-existent risk of an oil spill polluting an entire ocean. Best of three worlds!

    • It makes more sense than their plans for nuclear-powered zeppelins for tuna fishing, or the hydroelectric-powered satellite for mining antimatter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hartree ( 191324 )

        "nuclear-powered zeppelins for tuna fishing"

        Dude! That rocks!

        Where can I invest?

        That's almost as cool as training poodles for underwater welding.

    • From TFA:

      In 2009, Rosatom announced plans to send a fleet of floating nuclear power stations to the Arctic, where they could power deep-sea drilling for oil and gas.

      There's so much wrong in that meme that I'm going to have to go lie down and hope I forget it happened.

      Did you read that meme on /.? Using a computer? and internet connection? What percentage of the electricity used in operating (and manufacturing) those things was generated by Coal (which is usually worse than nuclear or oil for the environment.) Are you going to go lie down in an air-conditioned room?

      If they don't use nuclear power to support the drilling operations, they'll likely use oil - the more nuclear power they use, the less oil they will have to use, the more oil to power your car, etc. and the

      • WHOOSH

        The GP's point is if you are going to bother building a nuclear plant, why not just skip the oil and coal altogether? If you can build 1 or 2 nuclear plants that would replace 2 to 3 coal fired power plants, isn't that a much more straightforward path? Instead, somebody decided to only make the nuclear plant the middle man?

        The same issue is one of the major roadblocks to electric cars. "Oh we're running out of oil for the cars, lets make a nuclear plant to harvest oil!" instead of "Lets build a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by blair1q ( 305137 )

          Dingdingdingdingdingdingding!

          Building a nuke plant to pump oil isn't about energy. It's about money and ignoring the consequence.

        • IANA NIMBY, but... it's a lot easier to get permission to operate nuclear power plants on the high seas than it is anywhere on land - how's that for ironic?

  • Using nuclear power on a ship?

    • As opposed to a submarine?

    • There are a few aircraft carrier crews that don't think it's too crazy.

    • Re:Pretty crazy idea anyway (Score:4, Insightful)

      by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @02:47PM (#37110826) Journal

      The ironic thing is that they could have possibly anchored this off the coast of Japan and prevented the meltdown.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlm ( 69642 )

        The ironic thing is that they could have possibly anchored this off the coast of Japan and prevented the meltdown.

        Naah the real irony was the general business model for floating plants was, we'll build a 3rd world country a plant and let them have the electricity... until they stop paying... at which point it gets towed away. This time its the builders who got towed not the 3rd world country.

        The other funny part is creditors are known for doing stupid things when they seize "their" property. Imagine a repo guy hauling core assemblies thru town on the back of a stereotypical repo lift truck. I'm glad the courts seize

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by modecx ( 130548 )

          I think it'd be more popular (and profitable) to rent these out to water-starved but well-off countries, to power desalination plants. A float it in, as a turnkey system, complete with technicians and all; that would be pretty nifty.

          • Not only that, but the excess heat (efficiency of a nuclear power plant is only about 33%) could also be used to distill more water, improving the total efficiency somewhat. Then all we have to worry about is the localized salt pollution.

            Maybe they can also use the salt somehow, with some of the excess heat and some of the energy, to absorb CO2 from the air??? taking clues from the Solvay process, maybe make sodium carbonate and ammonium chloride, both useful products.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hartree ( 191324 )

          "This time its the builders who got towed not the 3rd world country."

          In Soviet shipbuilding, barge tows you!

    • yeah, that's almost as crazy as a nuclear reactor on a B-36, who'd be insane enough to put any money into a concept like that, or build a couple reactors for that? hahaha

      • Obama? As long as he could filter the money through some Union and into his campaign funds. He could create several more temporary minimum wage jobs at a mere $280,000/job.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_airplane

      • Erm, the B-36 was a piston powered craft.

        Unless your are talking about nuclear warheads, which while they might satisfy the technical requirements to be called a reactor, are almost never considered such.

        OH WAIT! You're talking about the NTA (B-36H-20-CF). Yea, that was a one-off repurposed craft for a scrapped project. Don't think that counts.

        • Yeah, and the government still owes my family $400,000 plus interest from 1955 or thereabouts, for unpaid bills on that scrapped project. B*()^(&^(&#(*&%!!!!

        • It counts for the purposes of my post, for the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) program huge amount of money spent on design for conversion of two B-36, and a couple of reactors were built

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlogic ( 892404 )

      Russia has been building nuclear-powered ships [wikipedia.org] for decades.

    • What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense. -Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by IrquiM ( 471313 )
      You must be American

      NS Savannah [wikipedia.org]

  • In soviet russia nukes float you!

  • In case of meltdown, just head it out to the middle of nowhere. Or am I missing something?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      In case of meltdown, just head it out to the middle of nowhere. Or am I missing something?

      The other part you're missing is there is usually no shortage of coolant water, thus preventing the meltdown. Unless they do something idiotic with a sandbar, of course. Its pretty hard to melt something down if its below sea level. Despite the cost, I'm thinking future coastal japan reactors are probably going to be built below sea level.

    • No not at all, you are not. In case of meltdown, unload the externalities on whoever the fuck you please and run of with the profits while the costs are socialized. The working model of the nuclear age. Congratulations for rediscovering a decade old model. Feel the loving hand of the free market shoved up your, ahhh.... well... no... feel how YOU shove the loving hand of the free market up someone else's arse and caress his prostate? Feels great, doesn't it?

  • The US did this decades ago (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    These are not the first nuclear power plant barges in existence. The US did this a long time ago.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A

    There's no money to decomission it, but the Army did just get funding to repaint it, so it looks all shiny and nice.

  • I'm surprised this wasn't about someone trying to create electrical infrastructure for one of those libertopia floating cities in the ocean

  • before everyone gets all upset (ok, admittedly too late) we should all realize how important such a ship would be after a Zombie Apocalypse. If you were the captain of such a ship... filled with recently picked up goodies and food stuffs from China... upon coming to shore in California and realizing the demise of mankind you could sail from port to port picking up the few remaining, non-zombie, hot chicks that will be milling about (this is clear from every motion picture on the subject ever made) and go a

    • Silly man. The captain will be irresistibly charming to the the heroes until slowly the tyrannical nature of his command is revealed and the characters find themselves outside of his trusted circle; enslaved on that very ship with the other hapless souls. Only after a charismatic call to rebellion will the protagonist lead the revolt against said captain, climaxing in a Michael Bay-esque explosion and congratulatory smooch from the hottest of the slave girls.

      Oh, and the Black guy gets killed first.

  • Just ride the wave... this solves the all tsunami problems...
  • Before everyone starts WTFing over a floating reactor, it's worth noting that the US Navy currently has just under 30 floating reactors in service, and another 70 in service that not only float, but are designed to sink and come back up.

  • They saw this coming a mile away...ended up saving themselves by forcing the issue of seizing their own assets.....smart move, and avoids the russian mafia from moving in indirectly to aquire said items!

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