Or the good oil years are behind us.Unless big things change energy wise the Arctic may face a new challenge. As the search for new oil and energy turns to the Arctic, the first interested   national or corporate entities on location with a way of supplying power for this remote exploration and extraction may also determine who controls dwindling energy resources. A race (or aggressive rivalry) of sorts may be underway between nations to be the first to build and put into use (deploy?) mini nuclear power plants.  The Russia government, private US and Japanese firms are exploring mini nuke power plants.

The US plant is styled on a small stationary reactor similar to those used by students of nuclear power, known as Training, Research, Isotopes, General, Atomics or TRIGA. They are made to be buried and generate 25 megawatts. Hyperion, the New Mexico based US firm calls its reactor a “nuclear battery”.

The Russians have been more innovative. They designed a floating nuclear power station with two units that will produce 35 megawatts each and travel to where it is needed.

According to Moscow times The Russian power plant, which is being assembled at the St. Petersburg-based Baltic Shipyard by Energoatom, a subsidiary of Rosatom, is the first of seven floating nuclear power plants that the company plans to build, Energoatom head Sergei Obozov told reporters on Monday

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/…

There won’t be much to distinguish an FNPS from a regular ship, to an untrained observer. The first will be 472 feet long and 98 wide, weighing in at 21,500 tons. The two reactors inside can produce 35 megawatts each .Although ostensibly built to serve far northern towns like Vilyuchinsk, which lies off the Bering Sea near Alaska, the real purpose of the new design, which will potentially end up in dozens of plants, is to help Russia extend its reach into the Artic if and when it begins to drill there for oil and gas. The only kink in that plan is that the Artic is far from a settled issue, politically.

Energy prices will likely dictate how long it is until the Russia, as well as other countries including the United States and Canada, delay oil and gas exploration in the region. Serious entry into the Artic will come only after the half-dozen countries with a claim have fought it out amongst themselves – potentially dueling it out with another sort of nuke.

http://industry.bnet.com/energ…

For more on a possible Arctic oil scenario unreassuredly headlined   The coldest war: Russia and U.S. face off over Arctic resources

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…