RUSSIA is to start building the world’s first floating nuclear power plant next year to supply electricity to its remote northern coast.

Despite the warnings of environmentalists, the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency has said that it will complete the first of several plants by 2011 and put it into operation at the northern port of Severodvinsk, on the White Sea.

Environmental groups say that the power plants will be an unprecedented environmental and security hazard because they will be moored in remote ports and would be hard to reach in the event of an accident or terrorist attack.

Russia has an unenviable record of nuclear and naval accidents, including the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in 2000, and has suffered terrorist attacks by Chechen rebels. “We’re very concerned — you’ll have an environmental, a security and a proliferation risk,” said Nils Boehmer, head of the Russia group at Bellona, an environmental group based in Norway. “It will be difficult to do anything if they have an accident, plus the fuel will be highly enriched and could be used in nuclear weapons,” he added.

But Russian nuclear officials, who have been promoting the idea for 15 years, say that the plants will have extra safety features to prevent radiation leaks and to resist even a 9/11-style terrorist attack.

“Leakage won’t occur even if a plane or a helicopter crashes into the floating block,” said Vladimir Uryvsky, the deputy department head at the Federal Nuclear Energy Agency. “This construction comes with a 100 per cent safety guarantee.”

The plants will supply electricity to remote ports that are inaccessible by road, such as Severodvinsk, which is the site of the Sevmash shipyard, an important defence manufacturer. Many such communities were left stranded when subsidies dried up after the Soviet Union’s collapse and still face power shortages during winter in temperatures as low as - 40C.

Each floating plant will house a 70 megawatt reactor similar to that on a nuclear submarine, or icebreaker, and big enough to power a city of 200,000 people. They will probably be assembled in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city, before being towed to their destinations around the coast.

The far eastern regions of Kamchatka and Chukotka — governed by the oil tycoon Roman Abramovich — have already signed up for one each and other regions are expected to follow. Each plant is designed to last 40 years and will cost about $200 million (£115 million).

China signed a $86.5 million deal this week to build the boat for the first one, while Russia will construct the reactor block. Russia also plans to export plants to China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Middle East and even Canada.

Concerns have been raised that the plants’ nuclear technology and materials could fall into the hands of hostile governments or terrorist. Each plant will hold enough highly enriched uranium to produce several nuclear weapons.

Earlier this year Greenpeace asked Russia’s Federal Security Service to ban the production and export of the floating plants, arguing that they would be easy targets for terrorist attacks. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say that it would be cheaper and easier to develop wind and solar power in remote regions like Kamchatka and Chukotka.

But the nuclear industry appears to have won over President Putin, who has accused environmental groups of impeding Russia’s economic development. “The nuclear lobby is very powerful. They still have the connections from Soviet times and now they want new business,” Mr Boehmer said.

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