New oil and gas drilling in the Arctic ocean off the coast of Siberia could be powered by floating nuclear power plants, according to Russia’s nuclear energy agency, and off-shore plants may also be built to provide energy for remote towns and military outposts.
The Russian nuclear agency has reportedly signed a deal to build four plants for towns in the far northern Siberian Republic of Yakutiya, and is currently constructing its first floating nuclear plant for a defense facility by the White Sea. But environmental groups are most alarmed at the prospect of using the portable plants to power oil and gas drilling. The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia’s biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years [The Guardian].
The Norwegian watchdog group Bellona, which has been monitoring Russia’s nuclear industry, says that floating nuclear plants would pose an unacceptable threat to the Arctic. “It is highly risky. The risk of a nuclear accident on a floating power plant is increased. The plants’ potential impact on the fragile Arctic environment through emissions of radioactivity and heat remains a major concern. If there is an accident, it would be impossible to handle,” said Igor Kudrik, a spokesman [The Guardian].
However, Russian officials point to a range of benefits that the miniature nuclear plants can provide, and argue that their long experience of operating nuclear-powered ships shows that the technology is safe…. Experts say that it can also operate as a desalination plant, producing up to 240,000 cubic metres of fresh water a day from the sea [Times Online].
As global warming melts the sea-ice in the Arctic Ocean, a vast store of mineral wealth becomes more available for extraction: the United States Geological Survey has estimated that the polar region contains one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas resources. However, environmentalists can take some comfort in the real possibility that the floating nuclear plants won’t get the financing to be completed. Bellona has reported that construction of the first floating nuclear plant was delayed when it was moved to a new shipyard for completion, and suggests that the worldwide economic slowdown has derailed Russia’s ambitious plans for a nuclear renaissance.
Related Content:
80beats: Could Mini-Nuclear Reactors Power Developing World Villages?
80beats: The Arctic Holds 90 Billion Barrels of Oil, Geologists Say
DISCOVER: Can Giant Robots Successfully Mine the Mile-Deep Seafloor?
DISCOVER: Nations Stake Their Claims to a Melting Arctic
DISCOVER: Arctic Land Grabs Could Cause an Eco-Disaster
Image: Rosatom
May 4th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I can’t imagine how this could possibly go wrong.
But I mean, honestly, why waste nuclear power sucking up oil? Why not just use it to power electric cars, and invest the money spent on drilling and powering drills in the arctic in getting new battery technology to the streets.
Sure, oil is cheap now, but once it’s out, it’s out, and all that money invested in oil infrastructure that is current showing as assets on oil companies’ balance sheets will suddenly be fairly worthless. If we work on reducing oil dependence, we can keep extracting the current amount of oil as we do now, but turning it into high-tech polymers instead of just turning it into poison and dumping it into the air we breathe. But if the investment in oil extraction keeps going up and up, you get the point of diminishing returns ramping up logarithmically, and once the oil is gone the equipment is so thoroughly contaminated with oil that it is toxic waste and needs to be cleaned up before being recycled. Sure can’t use it to pipe milk somewhere!
May 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Russian people are very intelligent , they can do better .Please stop drilling arctic.Hope this nation realises the dangers of global warming ,the rest of the world should stop it.
There are different alternatives to build fuel infrastructure than this ,
May 8th, 2009 at 11:55 am
This article was featured on the Colbert Report 5/7/09: 2:48 into the 3rd act
May 10th, 2009 at 10:43 am
From the team that brought you “Chernobyl!” comes “Attack of the 50 Foot Glowing Polar Bear!”.
May 21st, 2011 at 1:13 pm
powering drills in the arctic in getting new battery technology to the streets.