A floating nuclear power plant is a floating power station that derives its energy from a

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat fr ...

. Instead of a stationary complex on land, they consist of a floating structure such as an offshore platform, barge or conventional ship. Since the reactors employed are smaller in size and power than most commercial land-based reactors, mostly derived from nuclear ship and submarine power plants, the power output is generally a fraction of a conventional nuclear power plant, usually around 100MWe, although some are planned to have as much as 800MWe. The advantage of such power plants is their relative mobility and their ability to deliver in-situ electric power "on demand" even to remote regions, since they can be moved or towed to position with relative ease within large water bodies, and then docked with coastal facilities to transfer the produced power and heat to a land

power grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

History

20th century

The first floating nuclear power station was the

MH-1A 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, w ...

, using

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary coolant (water) i ...

built in a converted

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Ma ...

, which achieved criticality in 1967. Proposals to build a floating nuclear power plants off the coast of New Jersey and off Jacksonville, Florida were considered in the 1970's but ultimately scrapped.

21st century

In the 21st century, Russia has led in the practical development of floating nuclear power stations. On 14 September 2019, Russia’s first-floating nuclear power plant, ''

Akademik Lomonosov ''Akademik Lomonosov'' (russian: Академик Ломоносов) is a non-self-propelled power barge that operates as the first Russian floating nuclear power station. The ship was named after academician Mikhail Lomonosov. It is docked in ...

'', arrived to its permanent location in the Chukotka region. It started operation on 19 December 2019. In 2022, the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

funded a three-year research study of offshore floating nuclear power generation. In October 2022,

NuScale Power NuScale Power is a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs). It is headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, United States. NuScale has been approved to build reactors in Idaho, in 2029 and 2030. The design ...

and Canadian company Prodigy announced a joint project to bring a North American

Small modular reactor Small modular reactors (SMRs) are a proposed class of nuclear fission reactors, smaller than conventional nuclear reactors, which can be built in one location (such as a factory), then shipped, commissioned, and operated at a separate site. The ...

based floating plant to market.

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

is also looking at a modular power barge of up to 800MWe using compact molten salt reactor technology.

Footnotes

External links

*
Sevmash, a leading Russian manufacturer of floating nuclear power plants

Floating nuclear power stations raise spectre of Chernobyl at sea
Nuclear power {{Electricity generation

Nuclear power stations A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces e ...

Floating nuclear power stations