
Russia Launches Floating Nuclear Power Plant; It's Headed to the Arctic - dcgudeman
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/30/607088530/russia-launches-floating-nuclear-power-plant-its-headed-to-the-arctic
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booblik
But dozens of nuclear submarines, with hundreds of nuclear missles floating
around are safer? That power plant is literally a drop in the sea.

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petre
KLT-40S reactor is the same type of PWR used on Taymyr-class icebreakers. So
it makes little difference if an icebreaker or a floating nuclear power plant
passes through international waters. Also, small naval PWRs like this one are
safer than a full scale nuclear powerplant, of which many are scaled up naval
power plants.

[https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/217260...](https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21726058-floating-reactors-are-their-way-submarine-ones-may-follow-
atomic-power)

[https://www.economist.com/node/17647651](https://www.economist.com/node/17647651)

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2008/jun/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2008/jun/09/john-mccain/navys-record-unblemished/)

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slededit
Water is great at containing radiation, to the point that you can safely swim
at the top of radioactive cooling pools (just don't go too deep). Should
something go wrong, scuttling the boat is a much better containment method
than what is possible on land. There are issues with debris escaping from the
vessel however - but the problem is much simpler than on land.

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lighthazard
What happens in the case of a fallout? It can contain radiation, but how
effectively?

~~~
slededit
If you sank it before containment was breached nothing would escape into the
atmosphere and therefore there would be no fallout. There would be leakage in
the ocean itself but its effect is more localized due to water attenuating the
radiation.

While research is pretty scant, there have been containment failures at sea.
Currently 8 submarines nuclear subs have sank. In general their effects have
been much less than Chernobyl the only land equivalent.

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stephengillie
_" The nuclear power plant has two KLT-40S reactor units that can generate up
to 70 MW of electric energy and 50 Gcal/hr of heat energy during its normal
operation," Rosatom said. "This is enough to keep the activity of the town
populated with 100,000 people."_

I'm glad there's no fuel in it while they're towing it from St. Petersburg to
Murmansk.

