Floating nuclear reactors to power up by 2025
Danish start-up, Seaborg, plans to send ‘mini-nukes’ to developing countries.
Advanced nuclear reactors fitted to floating barges could be the power source of the future, according to the Guardian today. The Danish company, Seaborg Technologies, believes it can make cheap electricity available around the world by 2025 by building a fleet of floating nuclear reactors. Its mini power stations have been developed to replace gas, diesel, and coal plants, and could prove especially useful to developing countries where power demand is soaring.
The ships are fitted with 100-megawatt compact molten salt reactors which can be built in two years and supply energy at a cheaper price than coal. The first of the ships went into service in Russia in 2019 and serves the port of Pevek. Seaborg has raised over £20m from investors and has received the first necessary regulatory approvals from the American Bureau of Shipping.
The advantages of the technology are that it offers developing nations a “turn-key solution”, for cheap, fossil-free energy – energy that can power water desalination and purification plants, industry and produce clean-burning hydrogen, a fuel that is likely to be in great demand in the future. If approved, Seaborg’s design would be one of the first commercially available portable reactors in the world.
