The much-hyped impending resurrection of nuclear power, driven by concerns about a warming climate, often seems to be repeating the past, but with a refrain of “smaller is better.” The latest downsized reprise from the early nuclear repertoire is floating nukes.
In the U.S. in the 1970s, New Jersey utility Public Service Electric and Gas, working with Westinghouse, enthusiastically proposed build large, conventional offshore floating nuclear plants of the Jersey coast. But the optimistic plans never got off the ground or near the sea, and Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse took an estimated $100 million bath in the process.
Last month, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea Electric Power Co. (KEPCO), the owner-operator of South Korea’s 25-unit fleet of landlocked nukes, announced a joint venture with South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries and Seaborg Technologies, a Danish firm pushing molten-salt small modular reactors. Their new business idea is to launch a fleet of barges housing nuclear power plants, each with generating capacity ranging from 200 MW to 800 MW.
The initial project, according to their press release, will be a 200-MW nuclear barge. Jooho Whang, KHNP CEO, said, “KHNP’s active effort will be aimed at fostering a mutually beneficial partnership between Korea and Denmark, with a focus on cooperation in the next generation nuclear power project, for a safer and cleaner future.” Seaborg’s “compact molten salt reactor” (CMSR) power barge, the company said, “is designed to be cost-competitive, whether it’s delivering process heat for industrial purposes, electricity into the grid of an existing coal port, or power the production of hydrogen and ammonia.”
Seaborg has designed a 100-MW molten salt reactor. Seaborg CEO Troels Schönfeldt told the Guardian that “the company’s 100-megawatt compact molten salt reactor would take two years to build and would generate electricity that would be cheaper than coal-fired power.” The implication is that the barge-based power plants would feature multiples of the 100-MW units.
Seaborg says it has raised about €20m from private investors and has applied to the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) for its stamp of approval. Building its barge-based floating nukes is likely to cost much more than that figure.
The Houston-based ABS is not a regulatory agency but a private-sector organization which describes itself as “a trusted advisor and partner, supporting marine and offshore business ventures for both traditional and non-traditional clients.” It provides consulting services in areas of shipping technology, construction practices, and safety. Its mission statement says the goal is: “To serve the public interest as well as the needs of our members and clients by promoting the security of life and property, and preserving the natural environment.”
The world’s only current floating nuclear power plant is Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov, a Rosatom-owned barge with two 70-MW reactors, towed in 2019 to the far eastern city of Pevek. Construction began in 2007, with a final cost estimate of about $700 million, vastly greater than the original estimate of $170 million, all figures provided by Russia. Rosatom has plans to build as many as seven more floating nuclear power plants, but Russia’s ruinous invasion of Ukraine may derail those plans.
In March 2022, ABS withdrew its contract providing consulting services to all Russian vessels. In a press release, ABS said, “After careful consideration of the situation in the Ukraine and the Black Sea as well as the applicable sanctions, ABS has taken the decision to withdraw all Class services involving Russian vessels, assets and companies.
“The decision follows the tragic events developing in Ukraine and a thorough evaluation of the evolving regulatory and sanctions environment and its applicability to ABS operations. As a U.S. company, ABS strictly follows both the letter and the spirit of U.S. sanctions’ law.”
Looking back at the 1970s failed U.S. attempt at floating nukes may offer some insight into the contemporary, smaller and less ambitious approach. An engineer for Public Service Electric & Gas, New Jersey’s dominant electric company, Richard Eckert, came up with the idea in 1969. The company saw this as a way to overcome increasing opposition to nuclear, by moving the plants to where they couldn’t be seen from land.
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission history of the venture notes that the utility contacted Westinghouse about the project. In 1971, “Offshore Power Systems (OPS), a joint venture of Westinghouse Corporation and Tenneco, proposed manufacturing 1,200 MW plants at a $200 million facility near Jacksonville, Florida. Placed on huge concrete barges, the plants would be towed to a string of breakwater-protected moorings off the East Coast. Using a generic manufacturing license and mass production techniques, Westinghouse President John Simpson predicted this approach could cut in half typical plant construction time and make floating reactors economical.” The Atomic Energy Commission liked the idea for two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors to be sited out of sight.
It was not to be. The second article in the short NRC history outlines why. “Offshore Power Systems, apparently, did not appreciate that putting land-based reactors out to sea was bound to raise new safety, environmental and regulatory questions…. Even the trade press raised concerns. Nuclear News worried about the ‘incredibly tangled mass of overlapping jurisdictions, state, national, and international law, inter-agency authority that included new players such as the U.S. Coast Guard.’”
The 1973 Arab oil embargo raised construction and financing costs. Tenneco pulled out in 1975. Westinghouse tried and failed to get a federal bailout from the Ford administration. PSE&G in 1977 announced a three-year delay in the project and pulled the plug in 1978.
The NRC history, written in 2021, concludes, “Going to sea, OPS discovered, did not allow it to escape the problems that beset nuclear power. A novel technological solution could not overcome public distrust and economic, technical and regulatory uncertainty. We shall see how Russia handles the challenges.”
–Kennedy Maize
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