Page 51: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2026)

FLOATING NUCLEAR of climate change and often face freshwater scarcity. Floating dustrial clusters where electricity demand is only one part of nuclear could provide ? rm, clean power without consuming the infrastructure challenge.

scarce land, while also supporting water resilience by power- This output breakdown demonstrates that ? oating nuclear ing desalination processes with excess heat. For SIDS, where should not be assessed only on a dollar-per-megawatt basis. energy security and water security are often closely linked, In some markets, the bankability of a project may depend on this dual-use capability signi? cantly improves the economic stacking several revenue streams – electricity sales, heat sup- case for ? oating nuclear. ply, desalinated water, industrial energy services, grid resil- ience payments, or long-term capacity contracts.

Floating Nuclear Power ‘101’

FNPPs are nuclear generation units mounted on barges or The Wider SMR Market platforms and deployed near coastal demand centers. They Most current FNPP concepts are based on small modular provide reliable baseload electricity with minimal operational reactor (SMR) designs. These are smaller than conventional carbon emissions. Unlike solar and wind, they are not inter- gigawatt-scale nuclear plants and o? er several advantages. mittent, which is critical in smaller or weaker grids where bal- There are 83 SMR designs at various stages of development ancing variable renewables can be more di? cult. Typically, or deployment worldwide (Figure 3). These included water- they can be fabricated in part or in whole in controlled ship- cooled reactors , high-temperature gas-cooled reactors , liquid yard environments, potentially reducing construction risk and metal-cooled fast neutron spectrum reactors , molten salt reac- making replication easier. Notably, they do not require large green? eld land sites. Finally, they can make use of waste heat Figure 1 for industrial processes or desalination.

The ? oating nuclear landscape today includes both de- ployed technology and emerging concepts. The only op- erational FNPP is Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov, a FNPP deployed in Pevek in the Russian Arctic. The plant uses re- actor technology derived from Russia's long experience with nuclear icebreakers and marine propulsion systems. Another ready-to-go is Russia’s Baim FNPP to be commissioned in the

Baimskaya ore zone in 2028.

Other players, including the United States, Denmark, South

Korea, and China, are exploring ? oating reactor solutions.

Some rely on compact pressurized water reactors, drawing on naval reactor experience and established nuclear technology.

Others are based on advanced concepts such as molten salt reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, fast-spectrum reactors and micro modular reactors.

According to the author's analysis, there are currently 118 Figure 2

FNPP reactor designs and/or prototypes globally (Figure 1).

The market is developing along several parallel pathways – relatively familiar water-cooled systems for near-term de- ployment; marine-based reactors drawing on propulsion and icebreaker experience; high-temperature and molten salt sys- tems targeting industrial heat and cogeneration; fast-spectrum designs with longer-term fuel-cycle potential; and microreac- tors aimed at smaller, remote, or mission-critical loads. This matters commercially because di? erent reactor types imply di? erent safety cases, fuel cycles, operating temperatures, end-use markets and licensing pathways.

The commercial value of these designs also depends on what energy products they can supply (Figure 2). Floating nuclear is often discussed as a power-generation technology, but several concepts are designed for broader multi-utility use, including heat and desalinated water. This is particularly important for islands, ports, remote coastal regions, and in- www.marinelink.com 51

MR #8 (50-65).indd 51 MR #8 (50-65).indd 51 8/6/2026 6:19:53 PM8/6/2026 6:19:53 PM