11:40 am – Press release n°3

Robin des Bois wrote yesterday to Rosatom, owner of the Sevmorput. Thanks to Rosatom for his reply:

November 20, 2020 – Press release n°2

The arrival of the Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship was scheduled for early November at Progress station, in the north of the Antarctic continent.

For more than a month, the Sevmorput has been suffering a failure. She has been sailing at reduced speed to and from a small square in the South Atlantic Ocean off Angola and Congo Brazzaville.

According the social network Vkontakte spread by the Barents Observer, the breakdown of the only civilian nuclear-powered merchant ship still in operation does not affect the reactor compartment. The technical problems would come from the propeller shaft. Divers would be at work to carry out repairs, which could only be precarious.

November 20, 2020 – Press release n°2

The arrival of the Russian nuclear-powered cargo ship was scheduled for early November at Progress station, in the north of the Antarctic continent.

For more than a month, the Sevmorput has been suffering a failure. She has been sailing at reduced speed to and from a small square in the South Atlantic Ocean off Angola and Congo Brazzaville.

According the social network Vkontakte spread by the Barents Observer, the breakdown of the only civilian nuclear-powered merchant ship still in operation does not affect the reactor compartment. The technical problems would come from the propeller shaft. Divers would be at work to carry out repairs, which could only be precarious.

Issue # 61 of “Shipbreaking” (pdf – 12,8 Mo)
the unique panorama on the end of life of ships and the tricks of globalization.
71 pages, 240 photos, 95 sources

9:45 a.m.

Her arrival was scheduled for early November in a Russian logistic station along the Emperor and Adelie penguins’ territory. Even today, the Sevmorput is coming and going off Angola and Congo-Brazzaville. For several days, her erratic movements have been reported by the newspaper Barents Observer. The trajectory of the Sevmorput continues to be atypical. She could be confronted with technical problems or diplomatic polemics.

The Antarctic Treaty prohibits the dumping of nuclear waste. The last and only official use of nuclear power in Antarctica dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when a 1.8 megawatt nuclear power plant supplied electricity to the U.S. McMurdo science station.