Floating nuclear power plant for Arctic

MOSCOW: Russia has launched a controversial floating nuclear power plant to supply farflung Arctic outposts with energy.

The Akademik Lomonosov vessel left its shipyard in St Petersburg yesterday for its maiden voyage. It is due to sail across the Baltic and Norwegian seas to the Russian naval port of Murmansk, the Interfax news agency reports.

The power plant’s two reactors would then be equipped with nuclear fuel, state news agency Tass quoted Pavel Ipatow, from plant operator Rosenergoatom, as saying.

In the northern summer of 2019, Academik Lomonosov is due to sail from Murmansk to the Arctic Sea to supply electricity and heat to Russian outposts and desalinate seawater.

The power plant can supply about 200,000 people with electricity. The destination port is Pewek in Siberia.

The project has been criticised by environmentalists. Greenpeace warned there was a danger of a ‘‘Chernobyl on ice’’, referencing the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor in Sovietcontrolled Ukraine that left swathes of Ukraine and Belarus uninhabitable.

Russia wants to secure the rich deposits of oil and gas that are believed to be around the North Pole. Due to ice melting, new ship routes are opening up in Russia’s north. Moscow is as a result strengthening its military presence in the region. — DPA