Bellona nuclear digest. August 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
News
Publish date: February 6, 2007
News
The St. Petersburg-based ship maker said the 50 Years of Victory icebreaker has been towed along the narrow Neva Riva to the St. Petersburg seaport and will undergo a series of tests to check its manoeuvrability and speed performance in the open sea.
"Experts will also test the ship’s navigation and communications systems, water-purification and anti-freezing equipment and other devices, whose performance cannot be checked near shore," the company’s press service said.
An upgrade of the Arktika-class icebreaker, the 159-meter (522-foot) long and 30-meter (100-foot) wide vessel, with deadweight of 25,000 metric tons, is designed to break through ice up to 2.8 meters deep (9.2 feet). It has a 138-man crew.
The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet, which is operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company, currently consists of five Arktika-class icebreakers (Arktika, Sibir, Rossiya, Sovetskiy Soyuz, and Yamal), and two Taymyr-class river icebreakers (Taymyr and Vaygach).
The icebreaker was launched in 1989 but could not be completed before 2006 due to the poor state financing.
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Kazakhstan voted in a referendum last weekend on whether to build its first nuclear power plant, and an exit poll showed voters backed the idea promoted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's cabinet in an effort to phase out coal plants.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
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