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Russia, China Cooperating on Floating Nuclear Power Plant

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 22 September: China is offering a tied loan for the construction of the first floating nuclear power plant. This was today announced by Rosatom [Federal Agency for Atomic Energy] chief Aleksandr Rumyantsev at a news conference in the Russian capital. He explained that "if China provides a tied loan for the construction of the first floating nuclear power plant and builds a barge on which the reactor will rest, we could in the near future create the first example of a floating nuclear power plant of this kind".

According to Rumyantsev: "this is our old ideological project back from the Soviet times, linked to the problems with supplies to the northern regions." He explained that a blueprint of a floating nuclear power plant of this kind "is ready in the form of drawings but we have to build at least the first demonstration installation and then representatives of many countries could become interested in it, as it could also work in the regime of desalination of seawater".

Rumyantsev noted that in the Soviet times the cost of each kWh produced by a power plant of this kind was very high and therefore back then we froze or rejected work on this project. Now, the head of Rosatom said, "when the price of hydrocarbon energy carriers surged in the world, this project could again be resumed.""The cost of a floating nuclear power plant of this kind is 200m dollars." The discussions about who would finance the work of the construction of the first floating nuclear power plant have been going on for a long time and now an opportunity has appeared to start the building of a power plat of this kind in Severodvinsk.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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