Fukushima.
The name alone is enough to conjure fear in
the hearts of anyone living along the west
coast of North America or the eastern seaboard
of Asia.
To many, Fukushima is our generation's Chernobyl,
and a reminder of the deadly consequences
of tapping into the almighty atom to fuel
our modern lifestyles.
Following the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima
Daiichi power plant, some surveys have shown
that public opinion on nuclear power is dropping
in Europe, and many countries are now planning
to decrease their reliance on nuclear power.
In the US the public remains almost evenly
split after taking a tumble from almost 60%
in favor for nuclear power pre-Fukushima.
And yet while the overall health effects of
Fukushima were far less than expected, and
certainly far short of every alarmist's worst
predictions, the world at large remains extremely
fearful of the nuclear monster.
Starting construction shortly before the Fukushima
disaster though, Russia's floating nuclear
power plant will be fired up this fall.
Predictably, it has come under intense international
opposition from groups such as Greenpeace,
who fear another nuclear disaster polluting
the ocean with radioactive waste.
But are these fears well founded, and is Russia
flirting with a disaster that could leave
its northern coasts barren of life for decades
or more?
Displayed boldly on it side, the Akademik
Lomonosov sports a diagram of an atom, the
international symbol for nuclear power.
With a hull that's 474 feet (144 m) long and
a displacement of 21,500 tons, the Akademik
is the world's only floating nuclear power
plant.
Nuclear power has been used at sea before,
notably the Soviet Union created battle cruisers
and ice breakers fueled by nuclear power,
and the US Navy has for decades relied on
nuclear power to operate its mighty aircraft
carriers.
Both the Russian and American navy, as well
as a few other navies, all operate nuclear-powered
submarines.
Yet the Akademik differs in that it's sole
purpose is to serve as a floating power plant,
rather than power the ship it is installed
on.
The ultimate destination for the Akademik
is the northern port of Pevek, deep in the
Arctic circle.
There power cables will be run to the vessel
and the nuclear reactor will power the port
and town built around it.
Though a land-based nuclear power plant already
exists there, the Akademik will replace that
facility and allow the decommission of its
aging reactors.
Those are not the only plans for the Akademik
though, as the Russians see the floating nuclear
power station being sent to other port cities
and industrial plants to provide much-needed
electricity.
Eventually Russia plans on building a small
fleet of these floating nuclear power plants,
and use them to power remote facilities and
even offshore gas and oil platforms.
With a power output of 70 megawatts, just
one of these ships can provide enough electricity
for 100,000 people.
Yet even within Russia there has been stiff
opposition to the Akademik, and both foreign
and even Russian cities lodged complaints
over the initial route that the Akademik was
going to take, forcing a new route and a delay
in its delivery.
Greenpeace meanwhile has collected over 11,000
signatures in Russia alone all calling for
the plant to be scrapped altogether.
Similar opposition in the US scrapped plans
to build a floating nuclear power plant off
New Jersey's shore back in the 1960s, but
the Russian government has not shown any signs
of shutting down the Akademik.
So, could the Akademik Lomonosov be a floating
Chernobyl?
First, the Akamedik uses a new generation
of nuclear reactors which enjoys the benefits
of vastly updated safety systems.
The KLT-40 reactor on board the Akademik differs
greatly from the reactors used in either the
Fukushima Daiichi power plant, or the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant- which was itself a disaster
caused by completely avoidable human error.
In fact the reactor aboard the Akademik is
similar to those used aboard Russia's nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarines, and as has been
shown in the past, those reactors are able
to be sunk to the bottom of the sea and raised,
then put back into operation safely.
In fact for a nuclear reactor to pose a serious
environmental hazard, a slew of very specific
catastrophes must take place in order to breach
the containment vessel, and the greatest fear
facing the Akademik- that of a tsunami sinking
the ship it is housed in- simply could not
lead to such a breach.
The KLT-40 reactors aboard the Akademik has
the same features of most other nuclear reactors
such as control rods which can be lowered
in an emergency in order to absorb neutrons
and thus stop the nuclear chain reaction at
the heart of the reactor.
As a pressurized water reactor though the
KLT-40 also features three additional different
methods of achieving a termination of nuclear
fission by flooding the reactor with cooling
water impregnated with boron from three different
sources.
Compare that with the boiling water reactors
at Fukushima, which were designed in the 1960s
and featured only a single source and method
to cool the control rods that stopped nuclear
fission.
But is a tsunami in the Arctic even possible?
Well, given its remoteness it's no surprise
that there's very little data available on
Arctic tsunamis and their frequency.
What is known is that the Arctic is considered
one of the most stable undersea geologic regions
in the world, with very infrequent earthquakes
which peak at about a magnitude of 7.5.
The greatest threat of tsunamis come from
undersea landslides, with scientists discovering
evidence of a particularly powerful tsunami
occurring 8200 years ago, with waves estimated
at 20 meters.
Other tsunamis have occurred in Arctic regions,
such as the 2017 Greenland tsunami which killed
4 people, yet this was a tsunami generated
by a huge landslide across a fjord from the
village it struck- it was not generated by
undersea activity such as happened in Fukushima.
With no mountains across the water from the
Akademik's planned location, there is no risk
of a similar event striking the ship.
Even if it did though, tsunamis are very rarely
ever dangerous to ships, and in the famous
2004 December tsunami that struck east asia,
thousands of boaters and even recreational
divers a mile or two from shore barely even
noted the passing tsunami.
That's because the energy of the tsunami wave
passed by in a column a few feet wide under
the surface, and was channeled into a mighty
wave by the increasingly shallow coastline
as it neared land.
If the Akademik was caught in a tsunami, it
would likely barely even notice the passing
wave beneath its hull.
In the end, nuclear power has been used at
sea in far riskier applications for decades
now, powering military warships all around
the world.
Several disasters at sea and the loss of nuclear
craft have all proven the safety of nuclear
power, and these were exclusively ships that
were operating in extreme circumstances.
The Akademik will be required to perform no
such hardships, and will instead sedately
sit anchored off shore for years at a time.
Fears of the Akademik harboring a nuclear
disaster are greatly misplaced, and in fact
the use of nuclear power will help ensure
that global warming coal, oil, or gas plants
are not needed to power remote ports along
Russia's northern coast.
New developments in spent nuclear fuel recycling
also promise to eliminate nearly all of the
most long-lived radioactive elements, requiring
safe storage of spent fuel for decades, rather
than centuries or more as is currently the
case.
As the world faces the now-certain effects
of global warming, nuclear power promises
to help fill the gaps between renewable sources,
and accidents such as Fukushima should serve
as a call to action to upgrade any remaining
and obsolete reactors, not to ban nuclear
power altogether.
