KHNP, Samsung Heavy, Seaborg to Develop Floating Nuclear Power Plants

South Korea’s Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Denmark’s Seaborg Technologies have created a consortium to develop floating nuclear power plants with Seaborg Technologies’ innovative molten salt reactor technology.

The power plants will be installed on barges with a modular design able to deliver from 200MWe to 800MWe, with the consortium’s first project expected to be a 200MWe power barge.

“The consortium aims to enable timely commercialization and a scalable export of factory-produced CMSR-based floating nuclear power plants worldwide, offering improved efficiency and inherent safety characteristics. With KHNP’s extensive experience in nuclear power generation, SHI’s offshore construction expertise and Seaborg Technologies’ innovative technology, the consortium is well-positioned to meet the growing demand for clean and reliable energy,” the companies said in a joint statement.

“Floating Nuclear Power Plant is a carbon-free energy solution which is efficiently responding the climate change issues and a next-generation technology expandable to floating Hydrogen, Ammonia plant the meets the vision of Samsung Heavy Industries.” added said Jintaek Jeong, CEO of Samsung Heavy Industries.

“This consortium is unique for deploying nuclear power at scale,” said Mr. Navid Samandari, CEO of Seaborg Technologies. “We are proud to say we have partnered with the best for construction and operations as part of our shared mission to develop and deploy the power barges.”

Consortium said that each 200MWe of generation capacity is expected to save over 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions over its 24-year lifetime compared with a coal-fired power plant.