Work on the plant will be completed in about 3 years' time, shipbuilders say

Jul 10, 2013 20:51 GMT  ·  By

For some reason, nuclear power is once again gaining popularity. Japan is looking forward to reopening most of reactors, and Russia has only recently announced that it plans to build the world's first floating nuclear plant.

Meanwhile, workers at Fukushima are trying to make head and tail of several contaminated water leaks that have been reported over the past few days, and figure out why the levels of radioactive strontium in one of the plant's wells have gone through the roof in just 3 days' time.

Some might say that all this conundrum at the Fukushima nuclear plant is proof that nuclear power is a no-go.

Still, Russia maintains that the floating plant it intends to build will be well equipped to withstand collisions with land, tsunamis or other ships.

Daily Mail reports that, should things go as planned, work on this floating nuclear plant will be completed by 2016 at the latest.

When completed, the ship will weigh an impressive 21,000 tons. It will be operated by a crew of 69 people that will make sure that the plant provides energy and heat to people living in remote areas of the country.

The combined energy generating capacity of the reactors aboard this ship is expected to be one of 70MW of electricity or 300MW of heat.

Interestingly enough, the structure will double as a desalination plant, meaning that it will also produce drinking water for the people who need it.

The same sources inform us that this nuclear plant, whose name will be Akademik Lomonosov, is the first in a series of such ships that Russia intends to build in the years to come.

The country is confident that, once it becomes the owner of a small fleet of floating nuclear plants, big industrial companies, cut-off port cities, and offshore oil and gas platforms will no longer have to worry about lacking access to the energy they need.