On Friday, three tugs will tow the Akademik Lomonosov barge out of Murmansk to begin a 5,000km voyage to a remote port on the other side of Russia’s Arctic coast, and in the process send waves through the nuclear energy sector.
The vessel is a floating nuclear reactor, a portable power plant designed to supply electricity to areas disconnected from the grid, and envisaged by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom as the future of small-scale nuclear power with an eye on export opportunities in developing countries.
But the two-reactor Lomonosov, which took a decade to design and build, has sparked safety fears and concerns over the environmental impact of any mishap, amid concern over a botched nuclear missile test this month at a military site close to Murmansk that released a radiation spike in a nearby city.