Russia launches floating nuclear power plant amid new “scramble for the Arctic”

Clara Weiss 

Last Friday, Russia launched a floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, in the Arctic Sea from its port in Murmansk. The vessel is supposed to bring electric power to settlements and companies that are extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka area.

The 144-meter (472-feet)-long platform is equipped with two KLT-40 nuclear reactors that are designed to generate power for up to 100,000 people living in the Chukotka region and companies operating there to extract raw material resources. It will first cross some 5,000 kilometers along the Arctic coast to Chukotka, where it will begin pumping out electricity offshore.

The launching of the Akademik Lomonosov platform is part of efforts by the Kremlin to significantly bolster its infrastructure in the region, including by electrifying it, building ports, and further expanding its icebreaker fleet.

It is the first time a floating nuclear power plant has been deployed since the US maintained one in the Panama Canal in the 1960s. Two Chinese state-backed companies are now also pursuing plans for at least 20 floating nuclear plants. American scientists are also reported to be working on similar projects. The Akademik Lomonosov has been criticized as a “floating Chernobyl” by the environmental group Greenpeace—referring to the 1987 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl—and a “nuclear Titanic.”

Fears about a nuclear accident are also running high because the launching of the Akademik Lomonosov comes just weeks after two significant military accidents in the region. In July, a fire on the nuclear submarine Losharik in the Arctic Barents Sea claimed the lives of 14 high-ranking Russian navy officers. A leading navy officer ominously stated at their funeral that they had averted a “planetary catastrophe.”

Then, in August, an accident occurred at a nuclear facility near the northern Russian town of Nyonoksa. Seven people, among them five nuclear scientists, were killed, and radiation that was up to 16 times higher than average was released. The cause for the accident is widely believed to have been a nuclear-powered missile test gone awry. In both cases, the Kremlin was engaged in an attempt to cover up the scale of the accidents.

Doctors at the local Arkhangelsk hospital who treated victims of the Nyonoska accident later told the outlet Meduza, which is close to Russia’s liberal opposition, that none of the medical personnel had been warned that the injured had been exposed to high levels of radiation. Consequently, no security measures by the medical personnel had been taken and both they and other patients in the emergency room had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. One doctor also reported that files about civilian patients treated at the hospital for injuries they suffered during the explosion were later destroyed. Moreover, reports suggest that four stations in the region measuring radiation were turned off in the immediate wake of the accident.

While the danger of new nuclear accidents is very real, it cannot be understood in isolation from the international nuclear arms race, triggered above all by US imperialism, which has unilaterally withdrawn from the INF treaty, and the escalating military encirclement by the imperialist powers of both Russia and China. The “new scramble for the Arctic” has become an intrinsic component of these developments.

The Arctic is estimated to hold 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves and 30 percent of its natural gas reserves, as well as huge deposits of rare-earth elements and other minerals such as nickel, uranium and diamonds. Climate change has led to a reduction of the Arctic sea ice levels by 40 percent since the late 1970s, making it more likely that significant portions of these resources can become accessible for extraction.

It will also make it possible to establish a direct sea transit route from Europe to Asia. Naval traffic across the Russian Arctic has already increased significantly in recent years. Lastly, the melting ice is set to fuel long-standing, unresolved disputes between the adjacent countries about territorial claims to the Arctic’s land and seas.

Political map of the Arctic (Credit: GRID Arendal)

In recent years, the Arctic has seen the largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, including one by Russia with up to 70,000 troops in September 2017, and one by NATO in October 2018 that involved 50,000 troops, 20,000 of them from the US.

The Arctic is of central geo-strategic and economic significance to Russia. By virtue of its geography, Russia has a vast border across the Arctic Ocean. Up to two thirds of Russia’s oil and gas reserves are estimated to be located in its Arctic exclusive economic zone. The region, though sparsely populated by only 2 million out of 140 million Russians, accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP, which is highly dependent upon the extraction and export of raw materials.