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Power Earth

Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plant Begins 2,650-Mile Sea Voyage (apnews.com) 115

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

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  • Russia heard that it was a bad idea to put a reactor near the ocean because if it is destroyed by tsunami, it can make part of the land uninhabitable. So they decided to put them on the sea because Russians live in Russia, not in the ocean. If that becomes uninhabitable, so what?

    Nukes are dumb. Letting Russia sell floating reactors would be dumber

    • lol offtopic (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      First they ignore you

      Then they argue with you

      Then they abuse moderation because they know your argument is superior to theirs

      Then you win.

      Over the years I've watched the discourse on slashdot shift towards sanity. Many of the arguments I've been making for a decade have been taken up by others, with the effect that I no longer have to post many comments I'd have left before because someone else has written them. And that is clearer nowhere than in debates on nuclear power. The lies of the nuclear playboys n

      • Re:lol offtopic (Score:4, Informative)

        by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @08:42AM (#59122738)

        What makes you think they were the only ones to lose a nuke sub?

        USS Thresher - lost April 1963
        USS Scorpion - lost May 1968

        If there have been others it was after I got out in 1995.

        • I suppose I thought that since a US Navy PWR has never lost containment. I sit corrected.

          Of course, that's not an endorsement of nuclear power, those reactors require exemplary babysitters, as the thresher incident shows.

          • Re:lol offtopic (Score:4, Insightful)

            by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @10:25AM (#59122910)

            The biggest difference is that the US Navy tried to do everything we could to save the crew. Whereas Russia just as soon let their men die on the Kursk than let us save them. And I worked with a guy that lived in ukraine back when Chernobyl happened. It was right around the USSR holiday May Day. So even though they lost containment and there was a lot of particulate in the air, they made everyone go outside and 'celebrate' as a show of whatever propaganda they were trying to show. No one even had a clue the dangers they were being made to deal with. Im sure most of the officials that made everyone go outside also had no clue either. Its a rather fucked up thing to throw your own people under the bus. Your people do not fight and have your backs if you dont have theirs. They need to know that their loyalty is always repaid. The US isn't always perfect in this regard but definitely 1000x more so than Russia. Hell watch Enemy at the Gate in the beginning when the russian conscripts were in Stalingrad and got routed out of fear, they fled only to see all the officers around the corner holding pistols ready to shoot them for retreating.

            • Apart from your friend's account, I honestly don't know if the USA is really so clearly superior in its concern for citizens. I love my good ol' USA, but I remember an episode of Forgotten Planet [discovery.com] that put Pripyat alongside Picher, OK. Apparently it took the USSR government 3.5 hours to evacuate all of the 49,000 residents of Pripyat. That's pretty amazing. Meanwhile, it took the USA almost 30 YEARS to evacuate all but a few of the 14,000 residents of Picher, OK. Picher was a mining town that became so toxi
              • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                I can only speak for my own experiences. I've pulled people out of bad situations. But the Kursk, thats just horrible. I personally flew aboard a fast frigate that struck a mine and was taking on water to help do damage control and get their firemain pumps back on line so they could de-water using eductors. I just cannot fathom leaving people to die when other people were on scene to save them.

            • Sorry,
              you are completely mistaken.
              The only big mistake the Russians made is that they did not evacuate the people on the other side of the lake who watched the fires. Most of them died over the next weeks.

              For the rest they took immediate action, decisive action. Firefighters from Chernobyl arrived minutes after the fire broke out and the reactor exploded. Most of them died over the next weeks, too. After all, unlike (see below) the troops, they had no protective gear at all.

              Already a day after it happened

              • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                cool, you do know it was a breeder reactor though right? probably should have not tried using it for power production too.

                • The reactor blew up because of a failed experiment ... that has obviously not much to do with breeding or powergeneration.
                  So no idea what you aim at.

                  • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                    It had a positive reactivity coefficient. That means the opposite of self correcting. It means that as power increases you have to fight a runaway reaction. In the us power generation we used water as a moderator. If power exceeded demand the water would heat up, reducing its density, which means fewer hydrogen atoms present (as in h2o) to thermalize neutrons. This equates to fewer thermal neutrons to go on to cause fission. As demand increases the water temp goes down because of steam demand. This means de

                    • Sorry, perhaps you want to read up on the design of said reactor and the reason why it "exploded" ... everythign you say has absolutely nothing to do with either of it.

                    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                      oh i read, I was in nuclear power school and had to sit through a 2hr lecture in 1990 on exactly what happened. That reactor had a positive reactivity coefficient. There was a long section on how that reactor was not using design criteria that the NRC put forth. I still dont get how you can excuse 600k dead people per your previous comment. You realize thats more dead than nearly every war combined.

                    • That reactor had a positive reactivity coefficient.
                      Perhaps yes, no idea.

                      Nevertheless everything else you wrote about the reactor is wrong: hint, it did not use water for moderation. ooops.

                    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

                      you misread everything i said. Water is a NEGATIVE reactivity coefficient. WATER is self correcting for uranium-235. I would be happy to give you a 500ft overview of reactor power if you ever want to chat.

          • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

            FYI: It's a lot worse [themoscowtimes.com] than just one lost nuclear sub.

            • The plutonium from that dumped waste is actually already measurable in the northern sea and dripping already into the baltic sea. Actually, that is old news it already happened in the late 1980s

              • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

                The plutonium from that dumped waste is actually already measurable in the northern sea and dripping already into the baltic sea. Actually, that is old news it already happened in the late 1980s

                Typical. The cavalier attitude and reliance on the complexity of understanding how things pan out is how they mask their activities.

          • The boats most likely did not sink because of a problem with the reactor ...

      • Russia has demonstrated time and again their lack of responsibility and capability when it comes to nuclear anything.

        Look, Russia makes flying nuclear fission reactors designed to nearly explode as the engine for a missle until it hits something and does explode. Just because they accidentally nuked themselves with it a few weeks back dosent mean they aren't safety conscious, they are the vanguard of nuclear responsibility.

        • by dk20 ( 914954 )

          "Look, Russia makes flying nuclear fission reactors designed to nearly explode as the engine for a missle until it hits something and does explode."

          Becaues the US didnt do the exact same thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • Ahh, I see, this is the equivelant of saying if America is irresponsible, Russia can be also? Or wait, you mean to say it's not a problem because they do it too so the environment cancels it out? I have trouble understanding your argument here, can I get a comparison to Venezuela or socialism to put it in context?
            • by dk20 ( 914954 )

              perhaps you can outline why you felt a need to post that russia made flying fissino reactors in the first place? Both countries did the exact same thing for the exact same reason.

              Same as your post around russia selling floating nuclear power plants.. because this is the first time that has ever been done?

              hard to stand there and tell others not to do things which you do as well isnt it?

              not sure what you are referring to about venezuela or socialism, your strawman debate is losing me here..

              • Umm, so not only have you conflated flying with floating, but where did I tell anyone what do do? Son, that strawman is in another mans field. If you can't reason out how Venezuela and socialism fits into this, maybe you are middle aged, Im guessing McCarthyism is easier?
                • by dk20 ( 914954 )

                  if you want to discuss venezuela and socialism/McCarthism, why not go find a thread on that topic? Isnt this about russia/nuclear reactors?

              • perhaps you can outline why you felt a need to post that russia made flying fissino reactors in the first place? Both countries did the exact same thing for the exact same reason.
                Because USA did it 50 years ago to fly a bomber "indefinitely" and Russia is doing it RIGHT NOW and on top of that HAD TWO ACCIDENTS IN A ROW iN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS
                And on top of that: they fly an nuclear powered cruise missile, not a damn airplane
                They can not even land the fucking bullshit as the reactor needs the cooling of the a

          • Yes, Orion was indeed never built. What's the point of mentioning it?
            • by dk20 ( 914954 )

              Orion wasnt buit.. but its nuclear engines which dumped radioactivity into the atmosphere were built.. and run

              google - Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA)

              • You're severely confused. Orion had nothing to do with NERVA.
                • by dk20 ( 914954 )

                  you are totally correcdt on that one.. Project Orion (using nuclear bombs to power a spacecraft) and NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) are unrelated?

                  "
                  Nuclear rockets are already a part of history. Two nuclear propulsion projects, Orion and NERVA, were actively pursued by the United States government during the Cold War, and even got to the point of test flights and engine firings.

                  Project Orion
                  Project Orion is the more well known of the two nuclear rocket projects, and has a number of pr

                  • Point is, no component of Orion was ever built. It was just all a mathematical speculation on paper. So you linking to Orion's Wikipedia page as something relevant for real-world Russian nuclear tests was utterly pointless.
              • Orion was not supposed to be powered by a NERVY but by freaking nuclear explosions of fission bombs.
                So: no, Orion engines never really got build, but you could reuse the nukes we have for it :D

      • Re: lol offtopic (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @10:28AM (#59122920)

        Only ones to lose a nuke sub for example.

        I have enough physics under my belt to possess a healthy fear and respect for the risks associated with nuclear power; that having been said, your anti-nuke comments are fueled by stupidiy and ignorance. This one in particular really takes the cake:

        Only ones to lose a nuke sub for example.

        It's right up there with this retarded gem:

        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.

        It sure is a good thing that carriers and subs can't float... fortunately they're also spiked with rather large magazines full of conventionals and nukes, in case anything does go wrong...

      • by dk20 ( 914954 )

        "Then they abuse moderation because they know your argument is superior to theirs"

        "Only ones to lose a nuke sub for example."

        Kursk received a lot of propaganda related coverage.. unlike Thresher and Scorpion.

        So, you post such commentary based on what? Some false sense of superiority? As others have posted, other nations have also lost nuclear subs... (Nuclear weapons as well if you want to go down that path).

      • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        Over the years I've watched the discourse on slashdot shift towards sanity. The lies of the nuclear playboys no longer go unchecked.

        Russia has demonstrated time and again their lack of responsibility and capability when it comes to nuclear anything.

        True that! [wikipedia.org]

      • Only ones to lose a nuke sub for example.
        They actually lost several. I minimum recall three (on the other hand, no one knows how many USA has lost, AFAIK, Britain and France lost none). One somewhere south of the US, rumor is the captain ran amok and wanted to launch the nukes, the crew subdued him but they sank the ship in the process.
        America tried to raise the wreck, but after first attempt the "lift" they had build to get it up broke and the boat sank again, second attempt they got a torp from another (s

    • Nukes are dumb. Letting Russia sell floating reactors would be dumber

      Slashdot, where the experts now to go for incisive technical debate. The first step up from a GNAA post.

    • by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @09:06AM (#59122792)

      Hmm...

      You've obviously never heard about nuclear powered submarines.

      It should be noted that nuclear submarines spend their time in the oceans. And while they seldom enter the Arctic Ocean, it's not unknown for them to do so.

      It should also be noted that most of them have reactors considerably larger than 35MW. Quite a few of them (dozens) have reactors bigger than 70MW (which is the total that the two reactors on this ship have).

      And it must be remembered that there are nuclear powered surface ships (Enterprise, Nimitz, Long Beach, to name three examples), which tend to have two (or more - Enterprise had eight) reactors, each larger than 35MW.

      And there was once a nuclear powered merchant ship (proof of concept), the Savannah. Which had only one reactor, but the one was larger than the two on this Russian ship combined)....

      Oh, and you may or may not be aware that, from time to time, nuclear ships (surface or submarine) have been used to provide electricity to cities post-hurricane (or other natural disaster).

      In other words, nothing to see here, move along....

      • Not to mention that being out in the ocean is the safest place to be during a tsunami, other than the middle of the continent. Out in the middle of the ocean they're usually a few inches tall. It's when they move into the shallows that they turn into monsters.

  • by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @07:52AM (#59122662)

    US: Sex on the beach

    Russia: Chernobyl on the rocks

  • So what? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @07:59AM (#59122670)
    I wish people would lighten up. When was the last time Russia had any kind of nuclear accident? No, that time doesn't count. Not that time, either. Nope, good try though. What? That time was Fake News
    • Yes, I agree, its better to burn diesel for power. Being anti-nuke is much more important than fighting AGW.
      • False dichotomies do not advance your goals. There are plenty of carbon-neutral alternatives - wind, wave power, geothermal, or if you're fine with shipping fuel then hydrogen or even biodiesel.

        • False dichotomies do not advance your goals. There are plenty of carbon-neutral alternatives - wind, wave power, geothermal, or if you're fine with shipping fuel then hydrogen or even biodiesel.

          Well, you just named a list of impractical solutions for that region. If the goal is clean air, low carbon generation then it is your false dichotomy that will prevent advancement of said goals.

          • Impractical because you said so? There's certainly no shortage of wind [rbth.com], for example, and that usually means waves too. Small-scale geothermal works pretty well in cold climates due to the thermal gradient. Hydrogen is an energy-dense fuel that can be produced commercially by electrolysis [engineeringnews.co.za] wherever you have water and excess power. Biodiesel is less attractive but is still a carbon-neutral drop-in alternative to diesel.

            All of these are completely viable alternatives to the logistics required to build a floatin

            • Small-scale geothermal works pretty well in cold climates due to the thermal gradient.
              I wished you americans would stop saying "geothermal" when you actually only mean a heat pump.

              Heat pump: reverse refrigerator principle. You use electricity to take surplus warmth not heat from the ground and pump it into the house. Works on low scale, makes warmth and uses electricity

              Geothermal: you place pipes in the ground under a volcano or other high heat source. You generate steam, and produce electricity from it. Y

              • Not actually American, but whatever. Yes, I was talking about electricity generation from geothermal heat - which btw doesn't require volcanos or hot springs anymore; see Enhanced Geothermal Systems [wikipedia.org], which can generate reliable power from hot dry rocks a few km below the surface.

        • There are plenty of carbon-neutral alternatives - wind, wave power, geothermal...

          Which will all help, and should be pursued by their promoters as a first step in decarbonizing. Now how do we replace the other 80% of our fossil energy base?

      • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        Most russian accidents result from russian designs departing from the guidelines set forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioo. Such as positive reactivity coefficients. Who thinks designing nuclear anything with a positive feedback loop is a good idea??

      • From the point of view of someone like me, who sits half his life in Germany, about 80m above sea level at a river that is overheated by nuclear power plants and is surrounded by 50+ year old German nukes: yes, anti Nuke for funk sake is more important than global warming. As sad as it is: I won't die from global warming. Even leaving half of the year in Thailand: I won't die from global warming. I will either die from old age or if a nuke goes boom around me in a car accident in the stampede of people flee

    • When was the last time Russia had any kind of nuclear accident?

      Three weeks ago. And in the finest traditions of the Chernobyl incident, the Russians are working hard to cover it up.

      This is the same nation that disposes of its nuclear submarines by either allowing them to rust away in the harbor or by sinking the reactor section in shallow water [wikipedia.org].

      • And in the finest traditions of the Chernobyl incident
        Chernobyl was not covered up. It was in the news and on TV every day, since about 5 days or 7 days after it happened. Only on the US of A it is a cover up as people still believe "no one died" and "Chernobyl is now a striving wild live reservoir because: no radiation" bla bla bla

        Chernobyl, happening during Gorbatshows reign was the death dagger to the USSR which tried to reform itself. Now the country is in the hands of oligarchs and Putin.

        Gorbatshow hi

        • The first indications the West had of any problem at Chernobyl was radiation measurements in Scandinavia [washingtonpost.com]. The USSR then tried to downplay the extent of the incident for a full week before admitting the reactor had been completely destroyed and exposed to open air. I'd call that a coverup, even if the truth came out eventually.

          • Nope.
            Wrong info you have.

            Yes, first indication was in Scandinavia and in Ispra, Italy and Karlsruhe, Germany. They did not run full public instantly. After all it was 1986. But they downplayed nothing.

            Would not had made any sense anyway, as the scale of the catastrophe was easily to grasp from the measurements above.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      I don't really know what your point is. The examples of crappy Russian attitudes to nukes is used as a reason we shouldn't make then, as if somehow is not making them will stop Russia or Russia doing a terrible job forces us to even if we have no track record like that.

      Russia is going to do its own insane things with nukes regardless of what we do.

  • by fygment ( 444210 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @08:43AM (#59122744)

    Never ever heard about that. And kind of speaks volumes about the relative safety of nuclear power ... as do the many nuclear powered ships/submarines. So what's the fuss about nuclear power?

    • Never ever heard about that. And kind of speaks volumes about the relative safety of nuclear power ... as do the many nuclear powered ships/submarines. So what's the fuss about nuclear power?

      Because OMG! RADIATION!

      • by dk20 ( 914954 )

        i especially like the anti-nuke crowd with their protest signs and tans. Gee.. they are very anti-nuke but they stand in front of a nakid fusion reactor?

        anti-nuke people make me think of the whole "dihydrogen monoxide" thing..

    • Yeah, and when it is time to decommission it, you just scuttle it in the Marina Trench.

    • One way of avoiding a massive amount of atmospheric carbon woul be to put the proven US naval reactor design on large container ships:
      https://newatlas.com/shipping-... [newatlas.com]

      • And the containers on that ships will cost as if made of solid gold. Naval reactors are horribly expensive to operate.

      • ...did you notice that the article has nothing to do with atmospheric carbon? It's about sulfur emissions. It would be significantly easier to simply ban high sulfur fuels for good. Or install scrubbers, whatever is easier for the industry.
        • ...did you notice that the article has nothing to do with atmospheric carbon? It's about sulfur emissions. It would be significantly easier to simply ban high sulfur fuels for good. Or install scrubbers, whatever is easier for the industry.

          Using nuclear power to propel large civilian ships is a perfectly cromulent means to reduce both CO2 and sulfur emissions.

          Another option to reduce CO2 and sulfur in the air is to use nuclear power to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. This does not require any modifications to the ships. It also does not require any more floating nuclear power plants. Why nuclear power to synthesize these fuels? Because nothing else is even close to being able to produce the fuel in sufficient quantity, at a low enough cost

          • Except it is pretty much the last place where you'd apply nuclear power to reduce CO2 emissions, due to the already low impact of shipping on CO2 emissions (around 4% or so, which might be further lowered with even a modest carbon tax because of very low price of marine fuel), the (absence of) economies of scale of nuclear power (and the inability to simply pull power over long wires in a non-stationary application like this), and the overall hassle associated with marine reactors. Any extra GW of nuclear p
          • As I pointed out to you, blindseer, and what you could have grasped yourself if you had the attention span an patience to watch the videos you link: this is not economical to do.

            The navy links you gave, explained exactly, why. For the navy it is economical, or would be, because 1gallon of fuel costs at shore X ... carrying it to the fleet makes the price 2X and making your own fuel is 1.5X. So: economical for the navy. Not economical or cars or ships or airplanes.

            So please have the dignity to stop spreading

        • The high sulfur emissions we have since 20 - 30 years (again, after we got rid of them in the early 1980s) is the only thing that prevented so far a galloping self enhancing feed back global warming catastrophe.

          If freight ships would be forced to get rid of sulfur, we would be down under cpmpletely in a couple of years: a a couple as in 10 or 20, most likely significantly below 20.

  • by jmccue ( 834797 )
    Well it could have been a floating coal plant :) If it is designed correctly I see no harm and it provides lots of reliable power in a remote area without spewing carbon in an already stressed area.
  • by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @09:09AM (#59122794)

    This is a fantastic setup for a future Netflix sci-fi series.

  • Service life (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Sunday August 25, 2019 @09:25AM (#59122824) Journal

    The planned service life for a nuclear reactor is based on how long it takes for the neutron bombardment within the reactor to make the metal components of the reactor brittle. Nuclear reactors on land have had their service life extended from 40 years upwards to maximize the Energetic Return On Energetic Investment (or EROEI) on the energetic costs from the construction of the reactor. So the service life of the reactor is a balance of those two factors, getting the most out of it before it becomes unsafe to operate.

    Looking at the Akademik Lomonosov [wikipedia.org] is about twice the capacity of the Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant [wikipedia.org] it replaces.

    Especially considering this is the first of its kind the reactors are from their icebreakers, so they have experience in using them. Looking at the service life of Ice Breakers [wikipedia.org] themselves appear between 30 and 50 years, so considering it won't have as hard a life as an icebreaker does maybe more.

    So the way Russia figures out how to scrap the old nuclear icebreakers will probably give us some insights to see how they will handle decommissioning this vessel when it reaches the end of its service life. Let's all hope for an improvement over past efforts [themoscowtimes.com].

  • Russia simply does not have the ability to handle nuclear reactors at all. They can't stop having incidents such as the one last week that is now giving Russia a dose of radiation.
    • The last incident (there were actually _two_ in the last two month in the same are) was not a reactor incident but a failed nuclear drive for a nuclear powered cruise missile.

  • What's wrong with a reactor floating? Would transporting it by trucks on bad roads be better? How about air freight?

  • I searched for MH-1A, just to find out more. The first result (an ad) on Startpage was "Nuclear Reactor on Amazon - Buy Nuclear Reactor". Who knew?
  • If catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is a real threat then we should consider every option available to us, even those we might not otherwise consider if the threat wasn't so great. That should include any energy source with a carbon footprint lower than coal, oil, or natural gas. That means including nuclear power, an energy source with the lowest CO2 produced per energy produced. Nuclear power also has the lowest human deaths per energy produced, requires the least natural resources for

  • This could be the safest reactor in the world, if they are willing to learn from their past mistakes...

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