More On Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plant

The news that Russia plans to build a floating nuclear power plant (covered last week by our Janice Cane), is generating considerable discussion over at Slashdot.

But while some are expressing astonishment at the news, the technology isn't all that new, something that our friend Rod Adams dealt with over at Atomic Insights in 1996:

Most people associated with the nuclear industry, and many residents of Florida have some knowledge of the ill-fated Westinghouse/Newport News Offshore Power System project.

Begun in 1970, this project was based on two ideas. The first was that a series of identical reactors produced in a factory type setting could be completed in a shorter period of time than a similar number of custom made plants constructed on site. The second was that plants located several miles off shore might be able to avoid the infamous Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome that had begun to plague power plant developers.

As Rod points out, we should remember that the project was eventually cancelled because of financial reasons, not technological.

UPDATE: Check out a post on the same topic over at Rod's blog.

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