A nuclear powered icebreaker is a purpose-built
shipSince the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
for use in waters continuously covered with
iceIce is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
.
IcebreakerAn icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...
s are ships capable of cruising on ice-covered water by breaking through the ice with their strong, heavy, steel bows.
Nuclear powerNuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
ed icebreakers are far more powerful than their
dieselA diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
powered counterparts, and have been constructed by
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
primarily to aid shipping in the frozen
ArcticThe Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
waterways in the north of
SiberiaSiberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
.
During the
winterWinter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...
, the ice along the northern seaways varies in thickness from 1.2 to 2.0 metres (3.9 to 6.5 feet). The ice in central parts of the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...
is on average 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) thick. Nuclear-powered icebreakers can force through this ice at speeds up to 10 knots (19 km/h, 12 mph). In ice-free waters the maximum speed of the nuclear-powered icebreakers is as much as 21 knots (35 km/h, 24 mph).
Uses of nuclear-powered icebreakers
The nuclear ice breakers of the
Arktika classThe Arktika class is a Russian class of nuclear powered icebreakers. They are owned by the federal government, but were operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company until 2008, when they were transferred to the fully government-owned operator Atomflot. Of the ten civilian nuclear powered vessels...
are used to force through the ice for the benefit of cargo ships and other vessels along the northern seaway. The northern seaway comprises the eastern part of the
Barents SeaThe Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...
, the Petchora Sea, the
Kara SeaThe Kara Sea is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya....
, the
Laptev SeaThe Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...
and the Eastern Siberian Sea to the
Bering StraitThe Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...
. Important ports on the northern seaway are, among others,
DiksonDikson is an urban locality in Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. Population: Dikson is the northernmost port in Russia and one of the northernmost settlements in the world. It is located so far north that one may experience complete darkness with no civil twilight...
,
TiksiTiksi is an urban locality and the administrative center of Bulunsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, situated on the Arctic Ocean coast. Population: It is one of the principal ports for accessing the Laptev Sea...
, and
PevekPevek is a town and Arctic port in Chaunsky District, part of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. After Anadyr and Bilibino it is the third largest town in Chukotka. Population: Municipally, the town is subordinated to Chaunsky Municipal district and together with Apapelgino and Yanranay, is...
.
Two nuclear-powered icebreakers, NS Vaigach and NS Taimyr, have been built for shallow waters and are usually used from the
Yenisei RiverYenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the largest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. It is the central of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean...
to Dikson, where they break through the ice followed by cargo ships with lumber from Igarka and cargo ships with ore and metals from the
Norilsk CompanyNorilsk is an industrial city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located between the Yenisei River and the Taymyr Peninsula. Population: It was granted city status in 1953. It is the northernmost city in Siberia and the world's second largest city north of the Arctic Circle...
's port in
DudinkaDudinka is a town and the administrative center of Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It was the administrative center of Taymyr Autonomous Okrug, which was merged into Krasnoyarsk Krai on January 1, 2007. It is a port in the lower reaches of the Yenisei River,...
. These nuclear powered icebreakers can also be used as fireboats.
The icebreakers have also been used for a number of scientific expeditions in the Arctic. On August 17, 1977, the
NS ArktikaNS Arktika is a nuclear powered icebreaker of the Soviet Arktika class. In service since 1975, she was the first surface ship to reach the North Pole, on August 17, 1977....
was the first surface vessel in the world to reach the
North PoleThe North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
. Since 1989, some icebreakers have been used for Arctic tourism cruises.
Russian nuclear icebreakers
In all, ten civilian nuclear powered vessels have been built in
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Nine of these are icebreakers, and one is a container ship with an ice-breaking bow. All six nuclear-powered icebreakers of the NS Arktika design have been built at the
Admiralty ShipyardThe Admiralty Shipyard is one of the oldest and largest shipyards in Russia, located in Saint Petersburg. The shipyard's building ways can accommodate ships of up to , 250 meters in length and 35 meters in width...
in St. Petersburg. The NS Vaigach and NS Taimyr were built at the Helsinki New Shipyard in
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
and then brought to Russia for installation of the reactors and steam propulsion systems.
| Ship Name | Launched | Project Number | Type | Class | Comments |
| NS Lenin |
1959 |
92M |
Icebreaker |
Lenin |
Decommissioned 1989. Museum ship A museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...
. |
| NS Arktika NS Arktika is a nuclear powered icebreaker of the Soviet Arktika class. In service since 1975, she was the first surface ship to reach the North Pole, on August 17, 1977....
|
1975 |
1052-1 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
Not operational. |
| NS Sibir |
1977 |
1052-2 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
Defueled and not operational since 1993. |
| NS Rossiya |
1985 |
10521-1 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
|
| NS Sevmorput |
1988 |
10081 |
Container ship |
Sevmorput |
Has ice-breaking bow |
| NS Taimyr Taymyr is a shallow-draft nuclear powered icebreaker, and the first of two similar vessels. She was built in 1989 for the Soviet Union in Finland, at the Helsinki New Shipyard by Wärtsilä, by order of the Murmansk Shipping Co....
|
1989 |
10580-1 |
River Icebreaker |
Taimyr |
|
| NS Sovetskiy Soyuz |
1990 |
10521-2 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
|
| NS Vaigach Vaygach is a shallow-draft nuclear powered icebreaker. She was built in 1989 for the Soviet Union in Finland, at the Helsinki New Shipyard by Wärtsilä, by order of the Murmansk Shipping Co....
|
1990 |
10580-2 |
River Icebreaker |
Taimyr |
|
NS YamalThe NS Yamal is a Russian Arktika class nuclear powered icebreaker operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company. It is named after the Yamal Peninsula in Northwest Siberia; the name means End of the Land in Nenets....
|
1993 |
10521-3 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
|
| NS 50 Let Pobedy |
1993 |
10521 |
Icebreaker |
Arktika |
Built as NS Ural, completed in 2007. |
Lenin class
At its launch in 1957 the icebreaker NS Lenin was both the world's first nuclear powered surface ship and the first nuclear powered civilian vessel. Lenin was put into ordinary operation in 1959. Lenin had two nuclear accidents, the first in 1965, and the second in 1967. The second accident resulted in one of the three
OK-150 reactorThe OK-150 reactor and its successor, the OK-900 reactor are Soviet marine nuclear fission reactors used to power ships at sea. They are pressurized water reactors that use enriched uranium-235 fuel...
s being damaged beyond repair. All three reactors were removed, and replaced by two OK-900 reactors; the ship returned to service in 1970. The Lenin was taken out of operation in November 1989 and laid up at
AtomflotMurmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
, the base for nuclear powered icebreakers, in the Murmansk Fjord. Conversion to a
museum shipA museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...
was scheduled to be completed .
Arktika class
Arktika class icebreakers are the bulk of the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet; six of Russia's ten nuclear civilian ships are Arktikas. Since they have been built over a period of thirty years, there is a fair bit of variation between ships of the class; thus specifications are listed as a range of values. In general, the newer ships are larger, faster, and require smaller crews.
Specifications:
- Length: 148 m to 159 m (approximately 136 m at the waterline)
- Beam: 30 m (28 m at the waterline)
- Draft: approximately 11.08 m.
- Height (keel to masthead): approximately 55 m
- Displacement: 23,000 to 25,000 tons
- Maximum speed: 18 to 22 knots
- Cruising speed: approximately 18 to 20 knots
- Crew: 138 to over 200
- Passengers: approximately 100
- Reactors: 2 OK-900A, 171 megawatt each
- Propulsion: 3 propellers totalling approximately 75,000 hp
- Maximum Ice Thickness: 2 to 2.8 m
- Endurance: 7.5 months at sea, 4 years between refuelings
Arktika-class icebreakers have a
double hullA double hull is a ship hull design and construction method invented by Leonardo da Vinci where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some distance inboard,...
, with the outer hull being approximately 48 mm thick at the ice-breaking areas and 25 mm thick elsewhere. There is water
ballastBallast is used in sailboats to provide moment to resist the lateral forces on the sail. Insufficiently ballasted boats will tend to tip, or heel, excessively in high winds. Too much heel may result in the boat capsizing. If a sailing vessel should need to voyage without cargo then ballast of...
between the inner and outer hulls which can be shifted to aid icebreaking. Icebreaking is also assisted by an air bubbling system which can deliver 24 m³/s of air from jets 9 m below the surface. Some ships have
polymerA polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...
coated hulls to reduce
frictionFriction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...
. Arktika-class ships can break ice while making way either forwards or backwards. These ships must cruise in cold water, in order to cool their reactors. As a result, they cannot pass through the tropics to undertake voyages in the
Southern HemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
. Although they have two reactors, normally only one is used to provide power, with the other being maintained in a standby mode.
Some ships carry one or two
helicopterA helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
s and several Zodiac boats. Radio and satellite systems can include navigation,
telephoneThe telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
,
faxFax , sometimes called telecopying, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material , normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device...
, and
emailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
capabilities.
Most nuclear powered icebreakers in the Russian service today have a
swimming poolA swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
, a
saunaA sauna is a small room or house designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these and auxiliary facilities....
, a
cinemaA movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
, and a
gymThe word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
nasium. In the restaurants aboard there is a
barA bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
and facilities for live music performances. Some also
have a
libraryIn a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
and at least one has a
volleyballVolleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
court.
Individual ships
On 17 August 1977, the NS Arktika ("Arctic") became the first surface ship ever to reach the
North PoleThe North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
.
The NS Arktika and NS Sibir ("Siberia") are presently not in operation but are stationed at Atomflot for extensive repair. Among other things, the nuclear reactors and turbine generators are to be upgraded as these do not satisfy the safety standards established for newer nuclear powered icebreakers. The Arktikas reactors have operated for over 150,000 hours, and research is underway to determine if they can be refitted to yield another 25,000 to 50,000 hours of service.
Neither the NS Arktika, nor the NS Sibir might ever come into operation again due to the operational economics. Unless there is a significant increase of transport in the Arctic it will not be profitable to operate all six Arktika-class icebreakers. It is to be expected that the oldest icebreakers would be the first ones to be taken out of operation.
The NS Rossiya ("Russia") carries two helicopters. Rossiya was used to transport an
expedition of around 40 West Germans to the North Pole in the Summer of 1990; this may have been the first non-communist charter of a nuclear icebreaker. Rossiya was in refit as of December 2004.
The NS Sovetskiy Soyuz ("Soviet Union") was trapped in ice for three days in 1998. In 2004, it was one of three icebreakers used for an Arctic
ice coreAn ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. As the ice forms from the incremental build up of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper, and an ice...
expedition intended to research
climate changeClimate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
and
global warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. One tourism operator
lists it as being possibly used for North Pole cruises.
The NS Yamal is mostly used for tourism and scientific expeditions. It has 50 passenger cabins and suites, and carries one helicopter. The crew is 150, including 50 officers and engineers. Yamal was the 12th surface ship ever to reach the North Pole.
The NS 50 Lyet Pobyedi ("50 Years of Victory") is the final Arktika class ship. It was launched from the shipyard at
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
on December 29, 1993 as the NS Ural, and delivered to
MurmanskMurmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
in 1994. It was later renamed and not actually completed and commissioned until 2006 due to funding delays. The crew is expected to normally number 138 persons. It has an environmental waste processing module added to the hull which accounts for 9 m of the ship's 159 m length; this makes it the largest of the Arktika class and the largest nuclear powered icebreaker in the world. It carries two
Ka-32|-See also:-External links:*...
helicopters. It entered service on April 2, 2007.
Taimyr class
Taimyr is also sometimes spelled Taymyr in English, and Vaigach is sometimes spelled Vayguch. The ships were built at the Helsinki New Shipyard in
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
by
WärtsiläWärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...
. The nuclear reactors were installed at the Leningrad
Baltic ShipyardThe Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...
in the Soviet Union after delivery from Finland.
Taimyr class specifications:
- Length: 150.2 m (Taimyr), 151.8 m (Vaiguch)
- Beam: 29.2 m
- Draft: 8.0 m
- Height: 15.2 m keel to main deck, 8 stories from main deck to bridge
- Displacement: 20,000 tons
- Speed: 18.5 knots
- Crew: 120 to 138
- Reactors: One KLT-40M reactor producing 135 MW
- Propulsion: 3 propellers totalling 52,000 hp
The bow hull plating is approximately 32 mm thick. As of December 2004, both vessels were undergoing refitting.
Future icebreakers
Russia is planning to start building new icebreakers (Project 22220 or ЛК60Я) after 2010.
In June 2008 the head of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom,
Sergei KiriyenkoSergey Vladilenovich Kiriyenko is a Russian politician. He served as the Prime Minister of Russia from 23 March to 23 August 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin...
, said "It is important to not only use the existing fleet of icebreakers, but also to build new ships, and the first nuclear icebreaker of a new generation will be built by 2015. This should be an icebreaker capable of moving in rivers and seas," he said. He went on saying that the Iceberg Design Bureau in St. Petersburg would prepare the design of the icebreaker by 2009.
Infrastructure
Support facilities include the fuel transports Imandra and Lotta which are used for refuelling and spent fuel. The Volodarsky is used for storage of solid waste; it can hold 300 cubic meters. Serebryanka is a tanker used for liquid waste which can hold 1000 cubic meters of material. The Rosta-1 boat is used for radiation monitoring and control, including sanitization of workers.
A third fuel vessel, Lepse, is filled with spent nuclear fuel elements, many of them damaged and thus difficult to handle. The vessel was used for illegal dumping of nuclear waste in the Barents and Kara Seas during 1963–84. During a dumping operation in 1984, Lepse encountered very rough seas, and high-level reactor waste mixed with water was splashed all over the inside of the cargo compartment. The contamination was so severe that the crew were forced to immediately return to port at the Atomflot harbor with most of the nuclear waste still in the hold. The ship was immediately recognized as being far too dangerous to decontaminate and return to service, and has been essentially abandoned with a cargo hold full of leaking spent reactor fuel vessels, in the harbor for over 15 years. It forms one of the world's most difficult and potentially dangerous nuclear waste disposal problems; an accident there could release more radiation than the Chernobyl catastrophe into the immediate vicinity of
MurmanskMurmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...
. A small crew monitors the ship on a constant basis while Russia tries to raise the money and perform the research needed for safe disposal.
In all, about 2,000 people work aboard the icebreakers, the nuclear powered
container shipContainer ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...
, and aboard the service and storage ships stationed at the Atomflot harbour. The crew on the civil nuclear powered vessels receive special training at the Makarov college in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Icebreakers generally try to navigate paths with the least possible ice in order to make speedier progress and to help ensure that they do not become trapped in ice too thick for them to break. In the 1970s and 1980s, land-based aircraft would observe and map the ice to help with course plotting. Over time, most of this work has been taken over by satellite surveillance systems, sometimes aided by the helicopters carried by the icebreakers.
Arctic tourism
Since 1989 the nuclear powered icebreakers have also been used for tourist purposes carrying passengers to the North Pole. Each participant pays up to US$ 25,000 for a cruise lasting three weeks. The NS Sibir was used for the first two tourist cruises in 1989 and 1990. In 1991 and 1992, the tourist trips to the North Pole were undertaken by NS Sovyetski Soyuz. During the summer of 1993 the NS Yamal was used for three tourist expeditions in the
ArcticThe Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
. The NS Yamal has a separate accommodation section for tourists. The NS 50 Let Pobedy contains an accommodation deck customised for tourists.
Quark Expeditions has chartered the nuclear-powered icebreaker "50 Years of Victory" for expeditions to the North Pole in 2008. The vessel's maiden voyage to the North Pole embarked in Murmansk, on June 24, 2008. The ship carried 128 guests in 64 cabins in 5 categories. "50 Years of Victory" completed a total of 3 expeditions to the North Pole in 2008 for the polar adventure company.
External links