Danish startup Seaborg Technologies says it can make affordable nuclear electricity a viable alternative to fossil fuels. It says its floating barges fitted with advanced nuclear reactors could provide electricity across the developing world as soon as 2025.
This news follows the success of the world’s first floating nuclear power plant (the Akademik Lomonosov) to go online in 40 years. It was built in a St Petersburg shipyard in Russia, then towed to and docked at Pevek, Chukotka, in the country’s remote Far East in December 2019.
Rosatom, the project’s developer, and Russia’s state nuclear corporation said:
These small nuclear reactors can operate non-stop without the need for refueling for three to five years, thereby considerably reducing the cost of electricity generation. While variable renewable energy installations such as wind and solar for such areas require expensive and polluting diesel back-up or costly energy storage, small nuclear power plants ensure uninterrupted electricity supply even for energy-intensive users.
The reactors have the potential to work particularly well in regions with extended coastlines, power supply shortages, and limited access to electrical grids, and the plant can be delivered to any point along a coast and connected to existing electrical grids.
Seaborg Technologies’ seaborne “mini-nukes” are designed for regions that lack the energy grid infrastructure to develop utility-scale renewable energy projects. The ships are fitted with at least one small nuclear reactor that generates electricity to be transmitted to the mainland, providing an alternative to using gas, coal, or diesel plants.
Kirsty Gogan, head of the London-based NGO Energy for Humanity, said:
For hard-to-reach regions, with a climate that is simultaneously too harsh to support the use of renewable energies and too fragile to continue its heavy dependence on fossil fuels, small nuclear, including floating plants, is the only answer.
Seaborg’s 100-megawatt compact molten salt reactor takes two years to build. The electricity it would generate is cheaper than coal-fired power. The barges would be built in South Korean shipyards and towed to coastlines where they could remain anchored for up to 24 years.
The company hopes to be taking orders by 2022. It has raised around €20m (£18.3m) from private investors so far and received the first of four necessary regulatory approvals from the American Bureau of Shipping.
Troels Schönfeldt, Seaborg’s chief executive, said:
The scale of the developing world’s energy demand growth is mind-boggling. If we can’t find an energy solution for these countries, they will turn to fossil fuels, and we surely won’t meet our climate targets.
According to the International Energy Agency, the growing global population and rising levels of affluence are accelerating the demand for electricity to the point that it’s on course to outpace the rise of renewable energy and increase dependence on fossil fuels. Floating nuclear power plants could be the “turn-key solution” necessary for fast-growing developing economies to power their industries, produce clean-burning hydrogen, and purify drinking water.
For decades nuclear energy has been used onboard seaborne vessels to power “icebreaker” tankers and submarines, but some remain skeptical. Chris Gadomski, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance nuclear analyst, said:
“The concept of a floating nuclear power plant has been around for a long time and makes a lot of sense. But there are concerns. There was inherent risk involved with nuclear reactor technologies and floating power plants, so combining the two could raise serious questions for investors and governments. In places like the Philippines and Indonesia, it makes a lot of sense. But it wasn’t so long ago that the Philippines was the site of a major tsunami, and I don’t know how you would hedge against a risk like that.
Others are entirely against the idea. Greenpeace activist Jan Haverkamp said:
Floating reactors are a recipe for disaster, including all of the flaws and risks of larger land-based nuclear power stations. On top of that, they face additional risks from the unpredictability of operation in coastal areas and transport – particularly in a loaded state – over the high seas. Think storms, think tsunamis.
However, Schönfeldt says Seaborg’s advanced reactor is designed to be safe in a worst-case scenario accident. It has a built-in system that causes radioactive material to turn solid outside of the reactor core so it can’t disperse into the sea or air as a gas or liquid.
