My New Piece On Naval Strategy And China.

At Colonel Lang's blog at which I have a privilege and honor of being a contributor.  

Late Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Sergei Gorshkov at the peak of the Soviet naval development in late 1970s to mid-1980s continued to stress his seemingly simple idea, first officially articulated in his 1976 treatise The Sea Power of the State, that modern (Soviet) navy must be balanced.[1] Gorshkov's idea of balanced fleet was that of a navalist, who envisioned modern navy capable to conduct global operations ranging from amphibious landings, to global anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations, to nuclear deterrent. Yet, throughout Gorshkov's long tenure as Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy one platform above everything else remained dominant in his thinking—a submarine. Unsurprisingly, 1968 Time magazine cover featured image of Admiral Gorshkov superimposed on the background with a submarine at the periscope depth. With all the Soviet Navy's impressive development of its surface fleet at that time, these were primarily submarines which USSR developed at a break-neck speed and eventually equaled or surpassed US Navy's submarine forces not only in quantity but in quality too, with even US Navy grudgingly admitting in 1988 that project 971 (NATO Akula-class) nuclear submarine being the best in the world.[2]  

This is an excerpt. 

Nuclear Titanic?

I am no specialist in "energy" issues, but what was labeled in the West (of course) a Nuclear Titanic (or Floating Chernobyl, if one prefers), still departed to sea and eventually should be towed to Vilyuchinsk on Kamchatka. 

Yet, no matter what one says--and to be sure many "environmentalists" are going apoplectic in the West and in Russia--Akademik Lomonosov floating Nuclear Power Station is an incredible feat of real hi-tech engineering. 

Displacing 21,500 tons, this "barge" is capable of providing electric energy for the cities with population of up to 200,000 people. Vilyuchinsk (aka Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky-50) being the main base of Russia's Pacific Fleet nuclear submarines (in reality it is Rybachyi which is right across Vilyuchinsk) seems a natural place for it, even in a purely dramatic sense, the town is stuffed with nuclear power and propulsion to the hilt anyway and will continue to see new arrivals of nuclear powered submarines in the near future. Two of Borey-class (project 955) strategic missile submarines are already based there, more are coming, including newest Yasen-class (project 885) SSGNs and modernized Oscars (project 949A) all getting there.  In general, Russia's Far East will need more energy, especially for cities growing along the coast and this type of energy supply seems very convenient. 

Of course, once one speaks about Kamchatka, one should always remember that it is a very seismic area (I can confirm that first hand) and some parts facing Pacific of this huge peninsula are known to be subjected to tsunamis, some of them very large. But Vilyuchinsk, together with Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky didn't see a serious tsunami, even with consideration of a couple big ones, earthquakes, striking Petropavlovsk in 1970s, for many decades. In fact--centuries for Petropavlovsk. Krasheninnikov Bay also seems to offer good protection. And then, of course, as tragic experience with Kursk demonstrated--Kursk's reactors automatically shut down, upon catastrophe unfolding, as was designed. In this sense Lomonosov's reactors safety is way better than of any land-built nuclear power station, especially in seismic areas, and especially so incompetently, if not negligently, engineered as was the case with Fukushima. So, we will see if this historic first will turn out to be a Nuclear Titanic or will simply work for many years as a reliable source of energy for future settlements along the coastline.