World’s first floating nuclear reactor arrives in Pevek after 4,700 km voyage on Northern Sea Route

Named the Akademik Lomonosov, it has successfully sailed from Murmansk and is intended to start operating in December supplying power to Pevek and oil platforms in the region. 

The journey started on 23 August and it arrived today, 9 September, after a voyage through the Barents, Kara and Laptev seas.

The 144-metre Akademik Lomonosov carries two 35-megawatt nuclear reactors, and work began on it in St Petersburg in 2006.

It has been developed by Russian state nuclear company Rosatom.

It was accompanied on the journey by tugboats and icebreakers. 

Good weather and ice conditions meant the voyage on the Northern Sea Route was faster than expected. 

For now it has moored several hundred metres offshore. 

The reactor - offering technology which could be sold abroad - showed ‘exceptional seaworthiness’, said officials. 

It is expected to be put in a permanent location by the end of the week. 

It is expected to operate for around 12 years. 

Environmental groups have campaigned against the facility which replaced a coal-fired power station in the remote region. 

Greenpeace called it a 'nuclear Titanic'.

A spokesman said: ’We think that a floating nuclear power plant is an excessively risky and costly way of obtaining energy.’

The campaigning group’s Rashid Alimov said: 'Any nuclear power plant produces radioactive waste and can have an accident, but Akademik Lomonosov is additionally vulnerable to storms.’

But Rosatom says the new power station will offer ‘clean, green, and stable energy supplies in harsh and remote conditions’.

A spokeswoman said: ’The Akademik Lomonosov is built to the highest standards of resilience and is able to safely withstand a full spectrum of negative scenarios including man-made and natural disasters.

'Nuclear icebreakers have been a feature of the Arctic for many years, and the Akademik Lomonosov's high level of safety is one of the features that makes it so well suited to this environment. 

‘There are real people and real businesses across the Arctic who will benefit from the power it supplies.’

The deployment follows White Sea accident during a reported weapons test that led to a spike in radiation.