Russia building football-field size nuke barge to power Arctic

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN/Popular Science: Russia building nuke barge to power Arctic
October 13, 2006
By Bjorn Carey
Popular Science


The $200-million floating plant will house two reactors on a football-field-size barge.

....The Russian nuclear-energy company Rosenergoatom is planning a mobile plant to deliver electricity to hard-to-reach northern territories near the White Sea, where harsh weather makes regular coal and oil fuel deliveries unreliable and expensive.

The $200-million floating plant -- slated for construction next year -- could provide relatively inexpensive, reliable electricity to 200,000 people....

***

The Russian plan is to mount two reactors on a football-field-size barge, float it to a port, connect power lines to the mainland, and turn on the reactors, providing communities with affordable electricity.

The plant will store waste and spent fuel in an onboard facility that workers will empty every 10 to 12 years during regular maintenance overhauls. After 40 years, the normal life span for a nuclear plant, the decommissioned plant would be towed away and replaced with a new one....

***

One concern is that a boat could ram the plant and spill waste into the water....(A) nasty storm could cut the plant off from the land-based power supply required to run plant operations. Should emergency generators fail, says David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Chernobyl-like disaster could ensue....(A)n overheated core could melt through the bottom of the barge and drop into the water, creating a radioactive steam explosion. Such a cloud could do far more damage than the plume of nuclear fallout kicked up by the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former U.S.S.R., Lochbaum notes, because the human body absorbs radioactive water droplets more easily than it does radioactive ash....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/13/floating.nuke.plant/index.html

[Ian David]

1. Who could possibly be more capable of safely handling nukes than Russia?

:sarcasm:

[DeepModem Mom]

2. That was my first thought. nt

[bananas]

6. The popsci.com article is titled "A Floating Chernobyl?"

The CNN article is from popsci.com, which also has a podcast (I haven't listened to it).

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/62416c853623e010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

A Floating Chernobyl?

<snip same article at cnn>

Floating nuclear powerplants? What?! That's what Jonathan Coulton says too. Find out more on the PopSci podcast.

<links to podcast and mp3 for play or download>

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Thanks for adding this, bananas! nt

[Dover]

3. What if it sinks? Holy crap!

More risky even than the land-based nukes.

[Sirveri]

8. America has 40+ nuclear reactors that sink

They do it on a regular basis and they are on board submarines.

[Dover]

4. What if it sinks? Holy crap!

More risky even than the land-based nukes.

[Megahurtz]

5. I wish people wouldn't use Nuclear - Anything!

:scared:

[Hekate]

7. Russia's environmental record is ghastly

Los Angeles Times just did a series that included info on dead and dying towns -- and their dead and dying people.

Russia -- USSR -- same-old, same-old. :scared:

Hekate

[Sirveri]

9. More ridiculous scare mongering about nuke reactors.

A nasty storm could cut off power supplies required to run the nuclear power generating station... Does that even make sense to anyone. If they lose power they would fire up the emergency Diesel generators then start the plant up and just power themselves at minimal levels, assuming they're shut down in the first place. Even if they had a complete loss of power since we don't know the design they are using there is a good chance they will have installed some sort of emergency cooling system which does not require any electricity to run. In addition Chernobyl was a High Temperature Gas Cooled reactor, it's claim to fame being that it was capable of being quickly refueled while running at power. This led to several serious design flaws and containment weaknesses. Even if we were to assume an identical design plant, if the core were to melt through the bottom, while it would flash boil its surroundings instantly, it would also quickly sink. Once under ten feet of water sufficient heat removal would have taken place to cause any steam generation to come to a complete standstill. And finally this entire stupid scenario is suppossedly taking place during a large storm, a large arctic storm. Anyone who thinks a STEAM plume is going to travel much of any distance during a snow storm needs a basic course in heat transfer and physics. As for the boat scenario... A fishing boat rams a floating football field. It's like a motorcycle ramming a big rig. The floating football field might feel it, but it probably won't care. That's assuming that they don't have any security measures in place to stop a boat from close in the first place.