Russia hopes to start operating the world's first civilian floating nuclear power plant in 2009, the head of state-owned utility Rosenergoatom has said.

Stanislav Antipov said related construction work has already begun on the plant, which is being built at the Northern Machine Building Plant (Sevmach), near the town of Severodvinsk in the northern Arkhangelsk region. Russia approved the Severodvinsk site in April 2004. The total cost of construction has been put at six billion rubles (210 million US dollars, 180 million euros). The plant is described as “floating” because it will be placed on a purpose-built barge. The barge will hold two Russian-designed KLT-40C reactor units of 35 megawatts (MW) each and two generators. Mr Antipov said the plant would use only low-enriched uranium of less than 5%.

The Nuclear Society of Russia reported Russia's Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) as saying reactor refueling, spent nuclear fuel and radwaste storage would all be carried out on board the floating plant.

Rosatom noted that the Nizhny Novgorod Experimental Design Bureau of Machine-Building had developed a number of reactor designs for floating plants, ranging from 3 MW to 40 MW. It said all these designs are based on reactors used in ships and submarines, which together have operated for more than 6,000 reactor years.

Russia announced in October 2005 that construction was about to start. At the same time, it said plans were in the pipeline for two more floating nuclear power plants ? at Vilyuchinsk and Pevek Bay, both in the far east of the Russian Federation ? to follow the one at Severodvinsk. The floating plant will initially supply electricity and heat to Sevmach as well as to Zvezdochka, a neighbouring plant carrying out maintenance on nuclear-powered ships. (NucNet 03/03/2006)