OREANDA-NEWS. August 16, 2007. The construction of floating, ground, underwater, underground, mobile and other types of NPPs is becoming a factor of national security of Russia.

Low-capacity nuclear power engineering is the basis of decentralized power supply systems.

Almost 2/3 of the territory of Russia is the zone of decentralized power supply, whose population and manufacturing companies heavily depend on imported energy.

On the other hand, this zone is rich in mineral resources: Chukotka alone is believed to have mineral wealth worth one trillion US dollars. The International Energy Agency says that Eastern Siberia and the Far East of Russia have as much as 14bln tons of oil. But the major problem is that those territories have little if no infrastructure for mining those vast resources. Large-scale networks are hardly a solution. The only alternative is low-capacity power engineering: as many as 50 regions in Russia say that they need small thermal power plants. 

Under such conditions, low-capacity nuclear power engineering can become the basis of decentralized power supply systems, especially in scarcely populated and poorly developed regions of Russia and the world: the Far North and the Far East, deserts and oceanic islands as well as megapolises. In Russia low-capacity NPPs can be built in Chukotka, Subpolar Ural, oil and gas deposits of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, Baikal-Amur Mainline, Northern Sea Route.

The latter has developed due mostly to nuclear ice-breakers. The floating NPP that is being presently built in Severodvinsk is the first in the series of small NPPs to be constructed all along the route. Russia spends over 3bln RUR a year to transport fuel and cargoes to its northern regions: 1.2bln RUR on the transportation of 250,000 tons of liquid fuel to the arctic regions of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Low-capacity NPPs will solve the problem of fuel supply, while floating NPPs will make decommissioning process much easier.

To remind, during the meeting of the Assembly of Representatives of Northern Territories in Salekhard in the spring 2004, President of Russia Vladimir Putin slammed the idea to resettle people from the Far North. He said that the federal authorities must develop the infrastructure of those regions so they have access to all benefits of civilization and no longer be disadvantaged.

The experts of Kurchatov Institute say that the construction of a network of floating, ground, underwater, underground, mobile and other types of NPPs is becoming a factor of national security of Russia. Today, the National Russian Center of Nuclear Ship Building in Severodvinsk is the only complex that has preserved the unique technology of nuclear ship building.

The floating NPP with KLT-40C reactors that is being built at Sevmash in Severodvisnk can be located on the shore only, while floating NPPs with ABV-6m reactors (6–12 MW) – to be built by Zvezdochka Engineering Plant — can be carried up the river inside the continent — closer to potential consumers. The project of ABV-6 reactor can be finalized and licensed within 1.5–2 years and put into practice within 3 years. In the near future Russia will need up to 30 such plants.

Severodvinsk has all necessary infrastructure for the construction, operation, repair and decommissioning of floating NPPs with both KLT-40C and ABV-6m reactors.

It would be noted that the branch of Rosenergoatom, the Directorate for the Construction of Floating NPPs, has worked out the concept of a general scheme for allocation of low-capacity NPPs in the territory of the Russian Federation. The experts of Zvezdochka believe that it is quite real to use part of the existing industrial and technical potential for solving the energy problems of the North and remote regions of Russia and that the company can take an active part in the projects to be carried out in the framework of the above-mentioned concept: particularly, in training operators, maintaining and operating floating NPPs, drafting the model floating NPP with ABV-6m reactor, manufacturing and commissioning floating NPPs with ABV-6m reactors, implementing desalination projects worldwide, designing floating nuclear desalination complexes on the basis of the floating power unit with ABV-6 reactor, participating in Rosenergoatom’s projects for building floating and ground NPPs with reactors of low and medium capacity for producing electricity and heat and desalinating sea water, participating in projects for building underwater power facilities.