
The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia - tysonzni
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/business/energy-environment/russia-floating-nuclear-power.html
======
halhod
I took a broader look at Russia's nuclear power program here -
[https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/08/02/the-world-
relies...](https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/08/02/the-world-relies-on-
russia-to-build-its-nuclear-power-plants)

~~~
stochastic_monk
I particularly enjoyed the Atoms For Peace subtitle, the name of one of Thom
Yorke’s side projects.

~~~
thx11389793
it's a reference to Eisenhower's famous 1953 speech

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ams6110
_Russia is conducting an experiment with nuclear power, one that backers say
is a leading-edge feat of engineering but that critics call reckless.

The country is unveiling a floating nuclear power plant._

Um, "unveiling" ??

We've have floating nuclear power in submarines, aircraft carriers, maybe
other vessels for half a century.

~~~
throwaway5752
Yes, the article notes that, _" The United States used a barge-based reactor
to generate electricity for the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 until 1976, and
Westinghouse, the American reactor builder, planned — but never built — two
floating plants off the New Jersey coast at around that time"_

1968! The interesting story is why the NYT's is running this and running with
it now [not trying to be tin-hat, maybe it was just a slow news day, but you
can find links posted on HN going back almost 5 years about this project]

~~~
notyourwork
I dream of a time when there is a slow news day so they publish less content.
Also dream of a day when you turn on a new station and breaking news is in
fact breaking news.

~~~
dgut
When I lived in Norway, this was pretty much the norm. They would publish
gossip about celebrities and politicians all day instead.

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ethbro
It's a good idea. Afaik, naval nuclear power has a pretty good track record.

Who knows if that will continue for commercial power generation?

But at least it solves the stupid "perpetual one-off design" space nuclear
power seems to have been stuck in. (Although I believe I read that at least
France standardized all their reactor buildings?)

~~~
mikeash
American naval nuclear power has an excellent record. Russian, not so much.
Skimming this list, I’m inclined to use the word “horrendous”:
[http://spb.org.ru/bellona/ehome/russia/nfl/nfl8.htm#O5](http://spb.org.ru/bellona/ehome/russia/nfl/nfl8.htm#O5)

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ivanhoe
Why not go one step further and make it fully submerged off the coast, to
protect it from a bad weather?

~~~
icc97
From the article:

> A French company has designed a reactor called Flexblue that would not float
> but rather be submerged on the ocean floor.

~~~
ivanhoe
Thanks, missed that part somehow.

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ggm
During a power crisis caused by a high tension cable breakdown Auckland
depended on ship borne power. I'm pretty sure it was GE gas turbines. There is
a well understood model for mobile power, I don't see why this model can't
work and guy lots of use cases. Nuclear why not?

The loss of competence in nuclear engineering worldwide worries me. Do we need
to start sending engineering grads to Brazil? Britain outsourced it's coming
plants to China didn't it?

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Animats
That's a lot of ship, plant, and staff for just 70MW. The Ford class of
aircraft carriers generates about 700MW.

~~~
petre
It's 2 x 70 MWe or about 300 MWt. A4W reactors on Nimitz class aircraft
carriers produce about 2 x 550 MWt which translates to about 100 MWe and 2 x
104 MW shaft power for propulsion.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor)

------
lisk1
Its worth mentioning that new turbines for generating electricity are in
development with higher output compared to the steam powered turbines. This
will basically increase the electrical output of the nuclear plant with the
same amount of fuel which will make NPPs even more viable in the future

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_ph_
The nuclear power plant of the future can be found in a science museum. All
dangers of a catastrophic accident aside, nuclear energy has become
economically infeasible. Just recently, half-build powerplants have been
abandoned in the US for pure financial reasons, and the other projects under
constructions face severe cost problems too. And this is not counting for the
still unsolved problem of disposing the nuclear waste. Meanwhile, solar and
wind have become much cheaper than nuclear, and counting in the construction
costs for new clean plants, even coal.

The idea of putting a nuclear power plant on a float is faszinating. It solves
cooling, allows relocation of the power plant and in the case of disaster, it
can be dumped into the ocean, which is somewhat better than contaminating
occupied land, but still isn't acceptable.

Unless there is some significant breakthrough in operating costs and safety as
well as a solution for the nuclear waste, nuclear isn't the future.

~~~
dmos62
> unsolved problem of disposing the nuclear waste

I'm not sure what you mean by unsolved disposal. Nuclear waste from power
plants is stored in secure facilities. It takes up a manageable amount of
space, is low maintanance and isn't dangerous. Furthermore, future reactors
will be able to reuse it; the current reactors only use up a small fraction of
the fuel. So actually, you wouldn't even want to throw it away.

Also, nuclear fuel is advantageous logistically. A typical plant needs 1
train-load of fuel a year. That's a relatively small freight, you can ship
that from anywhere around the world. On the other hand, for carbon-fuel
powerplants, you need a train load of fuel per day.

I'd love to see the planet off non-renewable-fuels, but a big hurdle is that,
unless we figure out storage, the renewable energy sources have to be
supplemented with something for when it's night and there's no wind. I don't
see a better option for that something than nuclear. Of course, an alternative
would be for society to switch to an energy usage scheme that doesn't presume
that power is uninterruptable. However, that would require profound changes to
our everyday lives, and I don't think we're quite mature enough as a species
to go through with something like that at scale.

~~~
_ph_
What do you mean by "secure facilities"? Yes, currently the nuclear waste is
in intermediate storage facilities. Which are buildings, with an useful life
time of 50 years. Unless a nuclear technology for reusing or processing the
waste appears, we are talking about safe storage for thousands of years.

~~~
fifnir
I don't think nuclear waste is as big a problem as you might think it is:
[https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/)

And on a side note, are solar and aeolic scalable enough to support (let's
say) the entire US ?

How much of the country would physically need to be covered for that? Cause
I've seen claims that it's just impossible

~~~
_ph_
Nuclear waste won't kill anyone, as long as it is contained in the storage
containers. We just don't have found a way to keep it guaranteed safe for
centuries.

Solar alone could easily power the country. Covering large parts of Arizona
would produce enough energy to power the whole world. Powering the US,
especially distributing it across the states, makes that an easy job. And of
course, there is wind. Probably it would be enough to cover all rooftops to
power any state.

On Sunny days, Germany can power 30% of the grid by solar only, and that is in
a country which is less suitable for solar than any place in the US except
Oregon.

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trhway
>given the seeming importance of sobriety on such a vessel, have a drink at
the bar.

if the journalists ever mentioned the "importance of sobriety on such a
vessel" in the presence of the crew, i'm pretty sure it immediately became the
next, right after "Za mirnyy atom!", popular drinking toast on that ship. "Nu!
za osobuyu vazhnost trezvosti na yadernom reaktore." Amen.

These floating reactors aren't the future - you just don't want a potential
Chernobyl delivered right to your city (just lookup the safety record of
Russian nuclear submarines what these peaceful reactors are built after).
These ships are a classic Russian solution (cheap, low tech simple/crude,
without long-term thinking) to the typical Russian issue of lack of
infrastructure at the time when climate change encourages and political
situation pushes Russia to increase development in the North-East regions.

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siculars
There isn’t a country on earth that would actually allow Russia to park an
actual nuclear bomb off their coast. Even the ones aligned with Russia. Oh,
how do you build a sarcophagus on a sunk nuclear reactor?

~~~
gambiting
Uhm, you don't, because water is absolutely fantastic at blocking radiation -
just several meters of it would block literally all radiation from a reactor
gone critical. Not to mention that nuclear reactors are not bombs, not any
more than coal fired power plant boilers are bombs.

~~~
petre
It doesn't prevent radioactive elements leaking into the water though.

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wrong_variable
> "Rosatom plans to serially produce such floating nuclear plants, and is
> exploring various business plans, including retaining ownership of the
> reactors while selling the electricity they generate."

No sane govt will allow a foreign power to literally be able to shutdown one
of their cities on a whim.

I think what the Russian Govt realized is that instead of building nuclear
power plants, its going to be more profitable to hold the electric grid of
some country hostage, just like the hard profit they make holding Europe
hostage with their gas pipelines.

EDIT:

There a lot more issues I have with their idea but that was the one most
striking to me.

\- How are going to supply electricity during a hurricane ? Most cites are
located on the path to some hurricane / cyclone / tornado.

\- Coastlines near cities are expensive real estate (not to mention anyone
with property there allowing a literal power nuclear plant blocking their view
) - it takes important real estate from ports that are much more useful for
docking ships, etc. Its possible to build a separate port far away from the
city; but then you have to pay the extra cost of building some extra
infrastructure to deal with the ship, at that point its just easier to build
your own power plant.

\- "Rosatom, in a statement, insisted its plant was 'invulnerable to
tsunamis.'"

Really ?? why are they trying to sell dumb electricity when they have the much
more valuable technology of invincible ships. How many tsunamis has one of
their ships survived exactly ?

~~~
coenhyde
Well the Australian government(s) aren't sane then. We've been privatizing our
power plants for decades, and iirc some owned by Government owned Chinese
enterprises.

EDIT: For what it's worth. I don't have a problem with foreign ownership of
the powerplants. But I do have a problem with privatization in a market
without much competition.

~~~
wrong_variable
ownership is different from actually having ops capabilities,

I do not think there is a button somewhere is Beijing that China can use to
just turn off Australian power plant on Australian soil.

The most China can do to sell the asset and temporary depress its price.

~~~
manicdee
The Australian market is routinely manipulated by pretending to turn off
equipment until the price rises sufficiently to pretend to turn the equipment
on just in time for the high price market.

So yes, there is "a button somewhere" that a private owner can use to just
turn off Australian power plants on Australian soil.

~~~
adventured
That's interesting, the US has an almost entirely privatized energy generation
market and doesn't routinely have that problem.

I've read a bit about Australia's energy problems over the years, I'm unaware
of how they regulate pricing though. The US has very strict rules in place for
its private utilities.

Private + tight controls has resulted in the US having close to the cheapest
power in the developed world. Roughly 1/3 the cost of Germany's or Australia's
electricity. Privatization doesn't explain Australia's numerous disastrous
energy choices and policies.

~~~
dredmorbius
Incorrect.

"Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown"

 _In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power
plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the
Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that
California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company
traders released here on Thursday._

 _The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north
of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that
Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running
up prices in Canada in advance of California 's larger experiment with
deregulation...._

[https://outline.com/f2N42r](https://outline.com/f2N42r) (nytimes)

Also:

Enron defrauded California out of billions during energy ...

[https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/05/enro-m10.html](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/05/enro-m10.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis)

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accnumnplus1
Clever way to distribute nuclear weapons capabilities?

~~~
rtkwe
No. Reactors don't fail or explode anything like atomic bombs. The only way
this could house a nuclear weapon is by having a hidden missile silo somewhere
in it and they already have nuclear missile subs for discreetly placing
nuclear weapons close to their target.

~~~
favorited
An atomic bomb is not the only form a nuclear weapon. Reactor fuel (or related
contaminated material) can be used to create a dirty bomb, which in some ways
is more destructive. Not in the initial blast, but in rendering the
contaminated area uninhabitable for decades or centuries.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Aren't dirty bombs considered a Hollywood trope, and not a weapon of any
actual utility (except scaring people with the thought of it)? See e.g.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb).

~~~
m1573rp34130dy
dirty bombs can function as a denial of access ordinance... when isotopes or
persistent toxin are scattered spattered over an area the cleanup is
prohibitively expensive , we than have a kiev/chornobl scenario...were this to
happen on wall street or silicon valley, it would be a major setback, or we
would have to requantify the acceptable titre of radionucliides in a
"occupiable" region

~~~
dogma1138
When you have 2000 nukes you don’t need dirty bombs for area denial the only
ones who would be interested in dirty bombs would be non-state actors and
those can’t build one and the few non-state actors that could are most part
not stupid enough to build one because they actually want to keep what ever
little regional power they have.

Also reactor fuel is a terrible material for a dirty bomb because of its long
half life time, you need materials which are much more active than that to be
effective like those used in radioactive medicine and sensors those isotopes
and are much more controlled than processed nuclear fuel and for a good
reason.

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bayesian_horse
Things like "nuclear" and "floating near Russia" don't inspire confidence.

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urchony
Can't believe somewhere in the world, someone is still harnessing nukes

~~~
icc97
John McCarthy has an interesting website over nuclear energy [0]. I can't
vouch for how actually true it is, but it seems reasonably well argued. This
was his comment over nuclear waste:

> Q. What about nuclear waste?

> A. The waste consists of the fission products. They are highly radioactive
> at first, but the most radioactive isotopes decay the fastest. (That's what
> being most radioactive amounts to). About one cubic meter of waste per year
> is generated by a power plant. It needs to be kept away from people. After
> 10 years, the fission products are 1,000 times less radioactive, and after
> 500 years, the fission products will be less radioactive than the uranium
> ore they are originally derived from. The cubic meter estimate assumes
> reprocessing, unfortunately not being done in the U.S.

I'd always assumed 25,000 years for it to return to normal levels.

[0]: [http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-
faq.html](http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html)

~~~
GW150914
I’m very pro-nuclear, we almost certainly need it while we improve renewables.
However, 25,000 years or 500 years... it’s pretty much the same problem for us
as a species. 500 years is significantly longer than the US has been a
country, and represents a period of time measured in many many generations.
500 years of storage is a _hard_ problem, and from the perspective of us, our
kids, their kids, and their kids and a dozen generations after it might as
well be a thousand, ten thousand, or 25,000 years. 500 years is longer than
any of us will be alive and far longer than we can hope to predict the course
of society and technology.

~~~
icc97
I agree, it's a bit ridiculous talking in these terms. Primarily I just want
to have my facts reasonably straight if I'm going to have a debate.

Shakespeare was born approximately 500 years ago, Cambridge University was
founded 800 years ago where as 25,000 years ago was in the depths of the last
ice age (11,000) and Wooly mammoths still existed (4,000). I can visualise the
first couple in my head, not the last two.

Given the fairly drastic things that are happening to the great barrier reef
(50% loss in 2 years and it's about 6-8,000 years old [0]) I question more and
more, how much of a risk nuclear is worth taking until solar and wind can take
over.

> 500 years of storage is a hard problem, and from the perspective of us, our
> kids, their kids, and their kids and a dozen generations after

I agree, we're passing on another problem, but it is a solvable problem.
Humans are capable of building structures that stay intact for more than 500
years. With climate change, there's so many factors involved we've no real
idea if it is even solvable.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef#Geology_and_geography)

~~~
GW150914
I couldn’t agree more, and moreover the odds of us giving the future something
other than our waste probably depends to some extent on embracing nuclear
power. If not, what we’re going to pass on might be light on radioactivity,
but heavy on a ruined climate and mass extinctions. I grant that in a perfect
world we wouldn’t burn coal or use nuclear power, but in this most imperfect
world we need to stop using fossil fuels and ramp up nuclear to ease us into
renewables over the next century.

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ricksanch88
I am starting to get sick of environmentalists complaining, doing nothing to
solve the issues their so "passionate" about, and then harassing / criticising
any solution that gets proposed.

------
mirimir
> Inside, the floating reactor is a warren of tight corridors, steep
> staircases, pipes, wires and warning signs in Cyrillic letters.

What? So Russians would have warning signs in English?

Indeed, the article overall sounds like anti-Russia propaganda. What's going
on with the NY Times about Russia and China? Just grasping for clickbait?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Cyrillic is the writing system Russian uses, English is one of the many using
the Latin system.

I'm not seeing an anti-Russian slant here. The criticism is tame for an
article on nuclear power, and they'd likely have the same concerns if this was
a US project.

~~~
mirimir
OK, I wasn't clear enough. The language is darkly evocative, of sloppiness and
danger. I mean, "warren of tight corridors". And "steep staircases", which are
very typical for ships, by the way. And "pipes, wires", which again is pretty
typical, even for your average trendy restaurant. And "Cyrillic letters"? I'm
not sure what to make of that. It rather states the obvious.

~~~
cpncrunch
>I'm not sure what to make of that

They're just trying to paint a picture for the reader.

~~~
mirimir
That, we agree about.

