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The concept has its roots in a US Army project from half a century ago. It is not new. The original one, pictured below, the MH-1 Nuclear Power Plant, sustained severe storm-related damage on its way back from the Panama Canal Zone to the mainland USA.
Photo of MH-1A Nuclear Power Plant, US Army, Operated from 1967-75.
Photo from Greenpeace Russia of Russia’s floating nuclear power station
Locations exported from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murmansk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pevek
The Russian floating nuclear power station is to be fueled and tested in the Arctic, Murmansk, which is near Norway and Finland before being towed across the Arctic for approximately 6000 km (thousands of miles) to Pekov, on the Alaska side of the Russian Arctic. (See the articles, below).
Pekov, Russia, photo released to public domain via Wikipedia
“Floating nuclear plant’s reactors to fire up in Murmansk
Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, has dispelled the cloud of mystery it had created about where and when, exactly, it plans to fuel its new floating nuclear power plant. At last it is known that the Akademik Lomonosov, as the plant is called, will be fueled at Atomflot, Russia’s nuclear icebreaker port in Murmansk, in the autumn of 2018.” Published on December 19, 2017 by Charles Digges. Read the article here: http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2017-12-floating-nuclear-plants-rectors-to-fire-up-in-murmansk
According to the Independent Barents Observer, the Atomflot site is one kilometer (less than a mile) from the closest apartment buildings in Murmansk. See: “Power button for floating nuclear plant will be pushed in Murmansk next autumn“, By Thomas Nilsen, December 15, 2017, Read the article here: https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2017/12/power-button-floating-nuclear-plant-will-be-pushed-murmansk-next-autumn
Photo by Greenpeace Russia of the floating nuclear power station constructed in St. Petersburg.
“Greenpeace opposes the very concept of a floating nuclear power plant as unacceptably dangerous, Alimov stresses. Experts say that in the event of an accident with a release of radioactivity, vast areas can get contaminated. It has been proved by the operating experience of vessel reactors. However, in case of floating nuclear power plants, piracy and terrorism add to the usual list of risks of natural hazards as earthquakes and tsunamis. If a floating NPP gets in the hands of criminals they would get hold of a significant amount of highly enriched uranium, and a chance for nuclear blackmail“. http://www.greenpeace.org/russia/en/news/Greenpeace-protests-against-the-launch-of-fueling-of-a-nuclear-power-plant-inside-the-city-of-St-Petersburg
“Invented” half a century ago and produced by merchants of death, Martin-Marietta – now Lockheed- Martin for the US Army:
“MH-1A was the first floating nuclear power station. Named Sturgis after General Samuel D. Sturgis, Jr., this pressurized water reactor built in a converted Liberty ship was part of a series of reactors in the US Army Nuclear Power Program, which aimed to develop small nuclear reactors to generate electrical and space-heating energy primarily at remote, relatively inaccessible sites. Its designation stood for mobile, high power. After its first criticality in 1967, MH-1A was towed to the Panama Canal Zone that it supplied with 10 MW of electricity from October 1968 to 1975. Its dismantling was started in 2014 and it is anticipated to be completed in under four years… The reactor was built for the U.S. Army by Martin Marietta… Between December 1976 and January 1977, the power barge was towed back to the United States, sustaining storm-related damage so severe that it had to divert to the Military Ocean Terminal at Sunny Point, North Carolina, and undergo temporary structural repairs.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MH-1A (Version accessed ca 2016)
The title says it all: “FLOATING NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN RUSSIA: A THREAT TO THE ARCTIC, WORLD OCEANS AND NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY” http://www.greencross.ch/uploads/media/gc_fnpp_book.pdf
“Floating nuclear power stations are planned to be used mainly in the Russian Arctic. Five of these will be used by Gazprom for offshore oil and gas field development and for operations on the Kola and Yamal peninsulas. Other locations include Dudinka on the Taymyr Peninsula, Vilyuchinsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula and Pevek on the Chukchi Peninsula. In 2007, Rosatom signed an agreement with the Sakha Republic to build a floating plant for its northern parts, using smaller ABV reactors./. According to Rosatom, 15 countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Namibia, Cape Verde and Argentina, have shown interest in hiring such a device.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station (Version accessed ca 2016)
Only the sanctions against Russia have restrained the creation of what is effectively a mega-conglomerate of ExxonMobil and Russian State owned Rosneft, though they still work together at Sakhalin. Trump Secretary of State, Tillerson, was ExxonMobil CEO until 30 Dec. 2016 and known as a Putin buddy. Not only did they plan to drill the Arctic together, but the Gulf of Mexico – offshore US. See: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/the-environmentalist-6-facts-about-oil-companies-arctic-drilling-plans-that-will-leave-you-thinking-wtf/. Just imagine the symbolic value for Putin of drilling offshore in the US Gulf of Mexico and west Texas. Former KGB agent Putin was around 40 years of age when the Soviet Union officially ended.
This appears to be paid (or ignorant) editing on Wikipedia:
“In the event of an accident, terrorist attack, or other calamity, it is essential to keep the core cooled, usually by covering it with water. An emergency measure can be to lower the core into the sea. In the worst case, accidental sinking or intentional scuttling will keep sea water on the core and prevent atmospheric release…” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station (As accessed ca 2016).
Clearly their intent is to just dump the “problem”of a nuclear accident into the ocean. This idea isn’t so great as they want us to believe: “In a meltdown, a China syndrome accident, the molten mass of what had been the core would burrow into the ground and some of the radioactive material held there. But with a floating nuclear plant, all the molten mass would drop into the water and there would be a steam explosion and the release of a tremendous amount of energy and radioactive material. It would be like a bomb going off,… With a floating nuclear plant you have a mechanism to significantly increase the amount of radioactive material going into the environment,” said Lochbaum, who worked 18 years as an engineer in the nuclear industry and also for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A large plume of radioactive poisons would be formed and “many more people would be put in harm’s way.” Further, there would be radioactive pollution of the sea, he noted.” (Emphasis our own. Read article here: http://nuclearfreeplanet.org/blogs/counterpunch–karl-grossman-floating-chernobyls.html )
Not to be outdone by Russia’s stupidity: “Chinese oil, nuclear companies to develop floating atomic platforms for offshore drilling ” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/15/business/chinese-oil-nuclear-companies-develop-floating-atomic-platforms-offshore-drilling/
China to develop small floating nuclear reactors
These floating nuclear reactors are not new. They are an old, stupid, US invention of a floating nuclear power station. The nuclear industry only recycles the same lethal crap. Nuclear is a dead industry only pumped alive through injection of massive taxpayer funds, worldwide. Thus, in democratic and capitalist societies the nuclear industry will not survive over time. However, solutions will still be needed for the nuclear waste. Clear proof of its death is its lack of innovation. Living industries innovate lest they die. Past time to bury this dead industry, before it buries us all. https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/01/19/runaway-foundering-sinking-nuclear-power-stations/
Mining Awareness + 
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