In mid-June 2006, Sergey Obozov, the Acting Director General of RosEnergoAtom, the Russian government-owned corporation responsible for building and operating the country’s nuclear power plants, signed a contract with the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk to construct Russia’s first floating nuclear power station. The signing of the contract crowned more than a decade of effort, Obozov said, beginning with work on designing the station and soliciting bids for its construction. [1] The choice of fuel for the reactors, however, could raise proliferation concerns. At the same time, the business model for possible future export of the units could strengthen international nuclear trade practices.

The floating nuclear power station will consist of two KLT-40S reactors with a total output of 70 MW of electricity. The same type of reactor is used in the propulsion systems of some Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers. The floating nuclear power reactors will use seawater for coolant. The cost of the first floating nuclear power plant is estimated at 9.1 billion rubles (about $330 million), but if future orders permit serial production of the units, costs are expected to decrease by approximately 15 percent. [2]

The level of enrichment of the fuel for the floating nuclear power plants is a matter of some debate. In 1994, it was reported that the Murmansk Shipping Company, operator of Russia’s civilian ice-breaker fleet, had stated that KLT-40S reactors use fuel enriched to between 30 and 40 percent uranium-235, implying that the KLT-40S would use the same fuel. [3] All uranium enriched to 20 percent or more uranium-235 is considered “highly enriched uranium” and is potentially usable for nuclear weapons. Since 2004, however, Russian officials and parliamentarians have repeatedly declared that the reactors would use fuel enriched to less than 20 percent uranium-235, which would avoid the proliferation risks associated with higher enrichment levels. [4] It is not clear, however, whether this fuel has been designed and certified for use in the KLT-40S. (These proliferation issues are discussed further below.)

Each two-reactor floating plant will be able to provide enough electricity for a city of 200,000 or contribute to the energy supply of larger cities. Although the units are quite small compared to land-based nuclear power stations being built today, which typically produce 1000 MW or more of electricity, RosEnergoAtom believes the floating reactors’ size will make them attractive for remote areas lacking access to centralized power systems and for seawater desalinization projects. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea are said to have shown interest in the project, opening the possibility of an export market for the floating units. [5]

The completion of construction of the first floating nuclear power station is scheduled for 2010. It is expected that each floating nuclear power plant will remain in operation for 40 years, with a dry-dock overhaul conducted every 12 years.

According to existing plans, the first floating nuclear power station will supply electricity to the area around Arkhangel, on the White Sea, and will be moored near the SevMash plant, the main facility of Russia’s State Nuclear Shipbuilding Center, where Russia’s nuclear submarines are produced. Other prospective sites are Kamchatka, Chukotka, Uakutia, Primorskii Krai (all in the Russian Far East) and Krasnoyarsk (in central Russia, with a coastline on the Arctic Ocean). Current plans foresee construction of as many as 20 floating nuclear power plants. [6]

The floating nuclear power station will be built in Russia, with Russian financing. Earlier, a consortium of Chinese banks offered to fully finance construction of the first such station on the condition that it be built in China by Chinese shipbuilders. RosEnergoAtom rejected the idea, however, saying that transportation of materials to China and then of the completed hull from China to Severodvinsk for the installation of the reactors would be impractical. Instead, the entire unit will be built at Severodvinsk. Rosatom sources, however, did not rule out the possibility of a joint venture with China on constructing floating nuclear power plants in the future. [7]

According to some reports, in addition to China, South Korea was also prepared to finance the construction of the floating power plant. Both states, however, wanted to control the construction of future units for Russia, as well as the sale of such stations for use in their own countries. The possibility of foreign funding received serious consideration in Russia, but in the end the decision was made to finance the project exclusively from Russian sources, namely the Russian Federal Nuclear Agency (Rosatom); the Russian state-owned oil and gas corporation, Gazprom; and, apparently, the Russian federal budget. [8]

Nonproliferation Issues and Opportunities
If the floating nuclear power plant reactors use highly enriched uranium fuel, the announcement of the contract to build the first such units could raise a number of important proliferation issues. Although uranium-235 enriched to 80-90 percent is best suited for nuclear weapons, 40 percent enriched uranium fuel could also be used for this purpose and might be an attractive target for terrorists. [9]

In this context, the frequency of fueling cycles for the floating reactors and the details of fuel management arrangements would be important factors in determining the degree of risk posed by their uranium fuel. According to press accounts in 2005, quoting sources involved in developing the floating nuclear power reactors, the reactors will be refueled at three-year intervals, and special security measures were being planned to address the possible associated dangers, including protection against underwater attacks by divers and advanced personnel access controls. [10]

Apart from these security concerns, the use of highly enriched uranium as fuel in a new class of reactors could undercut international efforts to curb the use of highly enriched uranium for civilian purposes around the globe. Under a program launched in 2004, known as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, for example, Russia and the United States are actively collaborating to repatriate to Russia Soviet- or Russian-supplied highly enriched uranium from former Soviet republics and former Soviet bloc states. Moscow and Washington are also cooperating to convert Soviet-designed reactors outside of Russia that currently use highly enriched uranium fuel to allow them to operate on low-enriched uranium instead. [11] (Moscow, however, has remained silent on whether it will convert its domestic civilian research reactors to low-enriched uranium fuels.)

If, on the other hand, the floating reactors are to be fueled with low-enriched fuel, then the proliferation risks posed by the program would be effectively eliminated, and it would reinforce the broader U.S.-Russian effort to reduce the use of highly enriched uranium in the civilian sector.

Separately, Russia’s approach to possible exportation of the floating units could also contribute to international nonproliferation efforts. According to the model developed by Rosatom, foreign customers would purchase only the products from the reactor, that is, electricity or, in the case of a desalinization project, fresh water. They would not control the floating nuclear power plant itself, either directly or indirectly. The crew and other personnel would be exclusively Russian and neither technology nor fresh or spent fuel from the reactors would leave Russian hands. [12]

For the past two years, the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, among others, have been seeking to develop new approaches to civil nuclear cooperation that reduce the need for states to develop indigenous capabilities for producing enriched uranium fuel or for “reprocessing” spent fuel – capabilities that can provide access to weapons-usable nuclear materials. [13] Under an approach to nuclear cooperation based on the Russian floating nuclear power plant model, these and virtually all other steps involving nuclear technology would be handled by the supplier country, while the purchaser would obtain the benefits of using nuclear energy to produce electricity.

This business model could establish a new approach for nuclear power plant exports, more generally, which could strengthen the international nonproliferation system. The concept that the floating nuclear power plant would never leave Russian control could, in principle, be adapted to on-shore nuclear power plants sales, with nuclear power reactors and their fuel being owned and operated by the supplier country, thereby reducing traditional proliferation risks.

Nikolai Sokov – Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies