In A Floating Chernobyl? Popular Science reports that two Russian companies plan to build the world's first floating nuclear power plant purportedly "to deliver cheap electricity to northern territories". The construction should start next year for a deployment in 2010. The huge barge will be home for two 60-megawatt nuclear reactors which will work until 2050... if everything works fine. It looks like a frightening idea, don't you think?
Let's now turn to Popular Science for more facts about this project.
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.
Of course, this might work as forecasted. But the risks are very high. For example, such a floating plant could spill waste into the White Sea. But even more frightening, what will happen if the nuclear reactors melt into the water? Well, we'll see a radioactive steam explosion. And I wouldn't like to be close to such an explosion, the CNET Networks reported.
KC
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