Here comes the next-generation reactor for Arctic floating plants
The RITM-200S is a significantly upgraded next-generation small modular reactor designed for floating nuclear power plants. Installation work is now set to begin at a shipyard in St Petersburg.
Rosatom on May 27 announced via Telegram that construction of the first reactor aimed for Russia's second-generation floating nuclear power plants has been completed. The reactor will now be sent by rail to the Baltisky Shipyard in St. Petersburg where it will be installed.
The Barents Observer has previously reported about the arrival of the first multistory barge-structure from China to the the yard earlier this spring.
Each of the new floating nuclear power plants will be equipped with two RITM-200S reactors, a slightly modified version of the RITM-200 reactors Russia is using on its newest generation nuclear-powered icebreakers.
While the icebreaker reactor model has a thermal capacity of about 175 MWth, the ones designed for power plant use have a capacity of about 198 MWth.
A total of four second-generation floating nuclear power plants - destined for Cape Nagloynyn on the northern coast of Chukotka in Siberia - will be built and delivered to the Arctic by 2031.
According to Rosatom, the production plant in Podolsk has now delivered 13 RITM-200 reactors and one RITM-200S reactor. The state nuclear corporation added that 14 more are at various stages of production.
The last icebreaker reactor manufactured was completed on May 14 this year and is intended for the Leningrad nuclear-powered icebreaker, also under construction at the Baltisky Yard where the floating power plants will be made ready.
Three more icebreaker reactors will be delivered: one more for the Leningrad and two for the Stalingrad. Eight other RITM-200S reactors mentioned in the Rosatom release are for the four floating nuclear power plants. The last four are for two yet-to-be-built land-based small nuclear power plants, one in Yakutia and one in Uzbekistan.
Rosatom has not responded to questions from the Barents Observer regarding where the uranium fuel will be loaded into the reactors and tested, at the shipyard in St. Petersburg before being towed north around Scandinavia, or at Rosatom's base for nuclear-powered icebreakers in Murmansk, like the case was with the Akademik Lomonosov plant that was put into operation in Pevek six years ago.
The Akademik Lomonosov is equipped with two KLT-40S reactors, a Soviet-designed model similar to those used on the older generation of Arktika-class nuclear-powered icebreakers.
