To meet its growing electricity needs in its drive to develop oil resources in remote Arctic regions, Russia has built a floating nuclear power station, a project that detractors deride as a “Chernobyl on ice”. The 144-by-30-metre (472-by-98-foot) barge holds two reactors with two 35 megawatt nuclear reactors that are similar to those used to power icebreaker ships. Activists at the environmental group Greenpeace are not convinced and call for international monitoring. They fear that the Akademik Lomonosov could become a “nuclear Titanic” or a “Chernobyl on ice” 32 years after the Soviet nuclear disaster. Greenpeace Russia’s Rashid Alimov said that accidents are possible at all nuclear power plants, but that the barge “will be especially sensitive to storms, environmental phenomena and threats such as terrorism.” He said China is also building a floating nuclear power plant.
Credit: ROSATOM
