Russian world-first: A floating nuclear plant [View All]

'No floating Chernobyl,’ authorities say of Arctic port project

AP - Updated: 30 minutes ago

MOSCOW - An Arctic military shipbuilding plant and Russia's Atomic Power Agency signed a contract Wednesday to build the world's first floating nuclear reactor.

The $336 million reactor will be built by the Sevmash plant in the Arctic port of Severodvinsk beginning next year, and will be commissioned in October 2010, said Sergei Obozov, head of the state-controlled Rosenergoatom consortium in charge of nuclear power plants.

He said the reactor — to provide heating and electricity to Sevmash — was the perfect solution for supplying energy to remote Arctic sites, and that Russian authorities were looking at 11 other possible sites for such reactors.

Atomic Power Agency head Sergei Kiriyenko denied that the reactor would pose a security or safety risk, saying that the Sevmash plant — the only Russian plant where atomic submarines are manufactured — was sufficiently well guarded.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13316942/