Floating Dangerously Close to Reality: Russia’s Floating Nuclear Power Plants

It sounds like the starting point for a paperback thriller or the fantastic scheme of a Yeltsin-era oligarch: Russian nuclear power generators are loaded onto barges, floated off the coasts of developing nations, and wired to produce cheap, mobile energy. Only it may soon be a reality, with disturbing implications for international nonproliferation regimes, a reality that the U.S. is unprepared for.This past July, Rosatom – Russia's state-run nuclear energy company – launched the Akademik Lomonosov, the first ship constructed in a series of planned Floating Nuclear Power Plants (FNPP). Towed out of a construction facility in St. Petersburg and into the Baltic Sea, the Lomonosov's first scheduled stop was a port in Murmansk to be loaded with nuclear fuel. From there it was to be transported to the Far East to supply energy to Russian mining operations. The Lomonosov is expected to be in operation by 2012; Rosatom intends to build six more FNPPs by 2015.Environmental groups have heavily criticized the effort. Charles Digges, a representative of the Norwegian Bellona Foundation, asserted that “floating nuclear power plants are absolutely unsafe, inherently so.” Vladimir Chuprov, chief of energy projects for the Russian branch of Greenpeace has called them “time bombs.” And a 2006 profile of the project in Popular Science carried the headline “A Floating Chernobyl?”But Russian officials dismiss these claims. The director of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko responded to critics, arguing FNPPs are “absolutely safe” and “there will be no floating Chernobyl." A Rosatom press release says FNPPs principally benefit Russia’s people as an “economic alternative to onshore power plants in remote areas with costly power transmission and fossil fuel deliveries.” Officials estimate that the FNPPs will be capable of supplying energy to cities of at least 100,000 people.Proponents also cite potential profits of selling nuclear energy abroad as an additional advantage of the systems. At the June 2010 launch of Lomonosov, Kiriyenko commented that “many potential buyers of future floating nuclear thermoelectric power stations are already coming to see this station for themselves.”So who's buying? According to media reports, India, China, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia have expressed interest, but more conclusive deals have yet to surface. A meeting last month between Kiriyenko and his Chinese counterpart, Chen Quifa, yielded a nebulous report from World Nuclear News that cooperation between the two countries was expected to “expand to cover floating nuclear plants.”Many observers have noted the unique challenges to security and international law posed by FNPPs. A 2004 Australian report to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations argues that Russia has not sufficiently demonstrated how it will protect FNPPs from capture, the theft of on-board nuclear material, or attack by terrorist groups. Others have argued that FNPPs represent an effort to bypass proliferation guidelines established by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency. By leasing an FNPP from Russia rather than operating a reactor on its own soil, a host nation may avoid some of the stringent security requirements established under international law for the protection of nuclear facilities.U.S. policymakers have been oddly silent on the issue. The State Department and Department of Energy websites contain little, if any, information about the systems. A2003 memo noting a possible Russian-Indonesian deal represents the State Department’s sole mention of FNPPs despite the implications for nonproliferation and international law. .Officials may be waiting for more concrete evidence of international deals before voicing their opinions. Or with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, they may have larger proliferation concerns at the moment. But what may sound outlandish today could, within two years, be a fully operational nuclear reality – and U.S. officials would be advised to prepare a response. The photo in this article is being used under Creative Commons licensing. The original source can be found here.