Russia’s controversial floating nuclear power plant is heading out for its first sea voyage.
The floating plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, was towed out of the St Petersburg shipyard where it was constructed.
It is to be towed through the Baltic Sea and around the northern tip of Norway to Murmansk, where its reactors are to be loaded with nuclear fuel.
32 years after #Chernobyl a crazy plan to put floating nuclear reactors in the Arctic is underway. SHARE to expose #rememberchernobyl pic.twitter.com/ZqnX0UqL3R
— Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) April 26, 2018
The Lomonosov is to be put into service in 2019 in the Arctic off the coast of Chukotka in the far east, providing power for a port town and for oil rigs.
READ MORE: A Baltic bank, a Belarussian bribe and a British embarrassment
The project has been widely criticised by environmentalists. Greenpeace has dubbed it a “floating Chernobyl”.
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