From cruise ships to oil tankers to houseboats, there's always a way to design a boat to fit our needs. Now, Russia has another iteration to add to the list: a nuclear power plant.
That's right. The next nuclear power plant from Russia will float.
The ships, which are expected to be fully functional by 2016, are really more like barges that can be towed to and from different destinations. The first ship in the fleet will be called Akademik Lomonosov, weighing in at 21,500 tons with a crew of 69 people.
Each plant contains two naval propulsion reactors and provides up to 70 megawatts of electricity — enough to power a city of 200,000 people. The video above takes you through some of the details.
The plants were initially designed for remote locations like offshore oil platforms and port cities. But more than 15 countries expressed interest in the floating power plants including Japan, where the Fukushima disaster occurred in 2012.The plant manufacturer, mechanical engineering company OKBM Afrikantov, claims that the mobile floating station would ride out the disaster better than land-based plants.
This isn't the first time Russia has experimented with floating nuclear power. The country has a 50-year track record of nuclear operations in ships and submarines in extreme Arctic conditions. The floating plant can also be modified as a desalination plant capable of producing 240,000 cubic meters of fresh water each day for remote locations.
Under normal operation, the plant does not release any hazardous material into the surrounding water.
How do you feel about a floating nuclear power plant? Let us know in the comments.
Image courtesy of OKBM
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