Nuclear Icebreakers: Russia's Atomic Fleet of Arctic Ice Busters

hello everybody welcome back to mega projects just before we get into it today i will say that this video is brought to you by the brilliant people of brilliant brilliant is a problem-solving-based website and an app with a hands-on approach to learning you can improve your stem skills while having a great time brilliant.org forward slash mega more on them in just a little bit the frozen wilderness of the arctic circle a slow rhythmic crunching can be heard the ice often between two to three meters in thickness covers the landscape as far as the eye can see well almost a long line of open water has appeared stretching back to the horizon at its head and the source of the crunching is a ship with a fearsome industrial quality to it pushing rather slowly through the ice this is the arctica the newest of russia's nuclear icebreakers no other nations operate such ships they are uniquely russian also russia has a lot of ice so it's not exactly a surprise there are six of these giant powerhouses currently operating in the russian fleet their role well apart from the exceedingly obvious is to clear shipping routes along the northern sea route which runs along the north coast of russia as well as accommodating occasional tourists who venture to the frozen north and a friend of mine has actually been on a nuclear ice breaker and been to the north pole on it just a fun fact with our climate continuing to warm at unprecedented rates the arctic region will likely open up like never before and russia intends to not only take a leading role in this new landscape and the possibilities that might come of it but also to fiercely defend its stake in the region these giant icebreakers may serve a very practical role but they also serve as an image of might and prestige the arctic region is a harsh place to live but four million people do just that not going to surprise you to learn that half of them are russians towns and even cities rely heavily upon ships to bring in essentials during the winter months if the heating runs out in a place like moments which sits almost above scandinavia and has a population of nearly 300 000 people well it's not going to be a good time russia's far north comprises an area measuring some 5.5 million square kilometers that's a whole of the third of russia by the way in fact if it was its own country you gotta remember russia is massive even a third of russia would make it the seventh largest nation in the world it's also an area rich in mineral and natural resources but it must be a truly difficult place to live no surprise that many of the gulags which appeared during the soviet era were situated in this part of the world those living in the region even received something called a northern bonus sort of an extra salary payment along with extra holidays extra disability benefits and an earlier retirement as a way of compensating for the polar living conditions [Music] while the nuclear variety only emerged in the 1950s icebreakers have been around for nearly a thousand years the first that we know of at least came in the 11th century with a group known as the pamores who were an ethnic mix of carolines and the russians living in north russia they used simple sailboats called kochi to break through the ice of the white sea the boat's hull was protected by a belt of ice flow resistant flush skin planking usually made of oak or locking along with a false keel for on ice potage which is when you quite literally have to pick up the boat and move it the rounded lines below the water line meant that the boat could be eased up onto the ice without damage and then just move by hand it took a few centuries but eventually things turned to steam power and the first of what we would consider modern icebreakers was the russian ship yermak which appeared in 1889 modern this was a ship that famously sailed through heavy ice conditions for more than a thousand days between 1889 and 1911. steam was eventually replaced with diesel as the size of the icebreakers increased dramatically with the mammoth 120 meter long canadian ship the ccgs louis since laura entering service in 1969 but by that point well we'd already gone nuclear and hey if you want nuclear-powered problem-solving skills there's brilliant and that is a transition brilliant is a hands-on website and app that trains your brain to think critically and solve problems they've got over 60 interactive courses in maths science and computer science now you've heard me talk about brilliant before and whether you're a student looking to get a head or a professional keen on building some essential skills well check out brilliant honestly if you're just keen on learning stuff check out brilliant you don't need to be improving your skills learning is is fun i'm going to bet you probably think that because you're watching a video all about nuclear icebreakers maybe you want to learn about neural networks though essentially how computers can program themselves well brilliant have a course on that and it teaches you through easy to access puzzles and it doesn't in plain english look if someone gave me a book about neural networks and like there you go simon have fun i would be confused and probably bored with brilliant i tried it and you did these puzzles it's you're just dropping things into place or answering simple questions and you're like oh okay i get it it's a better way to learn and neural networks is just one thing brilliant is a great complement to watching educational videos like this one and it'll help you master even complex and technical subjects so why not support megaprojects why not get unlimited access to all of brilliant in-depth math and science courses just head over to brilliant.org forward slash mega and you're at 20 off your annual premium subscription and let's get back to it [Music] when the ns lenin launched in 1957 it became the world's first nuclear icebreaker and also the first nuclear-powered vessel in civilian hands measuring 134 meters in length it had a displacement of 16 000 tons which is big but it's not exactly enormous especially compared to modern ships the ship was initially powered by three ok 115 nuclear reactors each supplying 90 megawatts of power but from 1970 two additional ok 900 reactors were added producing 171 megawatts each to give you an idea of the kind of power we're talking about here a hundred megawatts in theory could supply energy to roughly a hundred thousand homes the ns lenin suffered two small-scale nuclear accidents small nuclear accidents which occurred in 1965 and 1967 the first was considered a loss of coolant accident which occurs when the coolant designed to regulate the reactor is reduced or it is completely lost in this case the coolant was removed before the spent fuel causing the fuel elements to melt and deform the inside of the reactor the second small incident which occurred in 1967 was a cooling system leak that became apparent after refueling in a slightly comical turn of events the concrete and metal biological shield which protected the reactors was smashed down using sledgehammers this led to the discovery of the league but now they were faced with the destruction of the shield which couldn't be repaired as a result all three reactors were temporarily removed from the ship the ns lenin was retired in 1989 not necessarily because it was outdated apparently because it was a terrible death trap but because its hull had worn too thin from all of the ice friction so i suppose despite the two small accidents it did do its job quite well from 1975 onwards a new breed of icebreakers emerged known as the arctic glass now i should add as a side note here that arctica is the name of a class of ship but it was also used for the first ship in its class which operated between 1975 and 2008 to confuse matters further because just well why not the newest edition which i mentioned at the start of the video is also called arctica great okay so with that bit of confusion out of the way six ships have fallen under the arctic class since the mid-1970s they were siber rossia sovietsky soyuz siamal and 50 led pobedy as well as the original article of course but all but the yamal and the 50-lip baby have been retired while the design of the ships has altered slightly over the years the general layout and statistics remained roughly the same the arctic class ships came with a double hull the outer of which measures 4.8 centimeters in the areas needed to break the ice and 2.5 centimeters elsewhere the newest arctic ships also come with a polymer coating designed to reduce friction with the ice and the ship's path through the frozen land is aided by an air bubbling system which fires out water from jets nine meters below the water line these jets can pump out 24 cubic meters of water every single second these ships are between 148 and 159 metres in length which is almost as tall as the washington monument with a water displacement of between 23 to 25 000 tons not surprising considering the environments that they operate in these ships don't exactly fly along and they've got a maximum speed of 20 knots which is about 37 kilometers an hour or 23 miles per hour the ships come with twin ok 900a nuclear reactors which are capable of producing 171 megawatts each but typically the icebreakers will only use one of their reactors at a time with the other kept in standby mode in case there's some sort of emergency they can remain at sea for seven and a half months and come with a host of amenities that make inching through the ice far more bearable these include a swimming pool a sauna a cinema a bar a library a gym one even has a volleyball court apparently the size of the crew on the ship varies considerably from 130 to 200 on the newer ships [Music] sandwiched between the old arctica and the new arctica were two tamir class icebreakers the tamir and the vigac which launched in 1989 and 1990 respectively and they're both still in service they are both slightly smaller than the arctica class icebreakers but share many similarities the one exception being that both have a winter garden that produces the ship's own vegetables the tamir has twice suffered from a minor release i love everything's minor let's just play it down big time minor release of radiation in the ship's ventilation system the second of which came in 2011 and forced the ship back to port under diesel power by the time it arrived back in moments some 6 000 liters of coolant had leaked from its nuclear reactor miner [Music] while the icebreakers do much of the hard work they are supported by a variety of ships used for refueling and the storage of spent nuclear waste material between 1963 and 1984 nuclear waste was just habitually dumped in the barents and cara seas located northwest of russia but this came to an end because of an incident that occurred involving a ship named thelepsy 35 years ago while dumping its terribly hazardous waste in rough seas nuclear fuel was inadvertently sprayed over the cargo compartment of the lepsy the contamination was so bad that the ship immediately turned for home with the majority of the nuclear waste still on board the ship upon arrival in adam plot harbor in the mansk the ship was considered too contaminated to even attempt to cleanse and the decision was taken to scrap the vessel entirely but it remained dumped in the harbor with the waste on board for an astonishing 15 years it was only in 2012 that it was removed and safely disposed of and that's why you shouldn't just dump your nuclear waste in the ocean [Music] as i mentioned right back at the start of this video russia is looking to greatly expand its presence in the arctic circle in the coming future the president has stated that by 2035 the russian fleet would have at least nine nuclear-powered icebreakers kicking off this building drive is project 22220 which will initially include three new vessels two two two two zero catchiest name ever construction began on the new breed of icebreakers in 2012 and the new arctica was scheduled to launch in 2017 but delays because of the ukrainian crisis meant that it didn't appear until late 2019. two further ships that fall under this class are scheduled to be completed by 2022 and they will be the sebir and the ural the cost of the arctica was thought to be about 37 billion rubles which is about 1.1 billion dollars and it's safe to assume that the following two will be in the same region not exactly cheap but compared to the 13 billion dollars that the u.s spent on their new aircraft carrier the uss gerald ford it doesn't seem like quite so much the arctica is easily the largest icebreaker the world has ever seen measuring 173.3 meters in length and displacing a hefty 33 000 tons which is three times that of the u.s arleigh burke class destroyers currently in operation it has a beam of 34 meters and a total height of 51.25 meters it is a huge vessel but does a fine job of doing what it was designed to do and is capable of breaking 2.8 meter thick ice while traveling at 1.5 to 2 knots at full power the ship comes with two ritm 200 nuclear reactors producing 175 megawatts of thermal energy each which don't need to be refueled until seven years have passed the arctica has had a rocky start to life after its three-year delay it almost immediately suffered short-circuit damage to one of its motors and is currently on sea trials operating at a reduced propulsion capacity because of this it's not immediately clear when it's going to be running at full power [Music] in august 2017 a ship passed through the northern sea route without the aid of an icebreaker for the first time an area of the world that has been typically treacherous for cargo vessels to venture into alone is changing and changing quickly nasa has stated that the arctic sea ice is declining by 12.85 per decade with estimates suggesting that we might have an ice-free summer by 2050. this will have far-reaching effects around the world with water levels rising substantially but before that it's likely we're going to see a large increase in traffic both cargo and tourists through the arctic regions with more and more opening up we will probably see many more icebreakers emerging both conventional and nuclear there is something that remains both fascinating and foreboding about what lies at our poles the frozen lands of the arctic and antarctic have enthralled and beckoned explorers now for hundreds of years some of which never returned these are the most inhospitable and most difficult places to travel on our planet but with these monsters of russian engineering and their powerful nuclear reactors cracks are beginning to open up like never before earth is changing rapidly and at the forefront of this new polar world will be the imposing shape of a russian nuclear icebreaker pushing imperiously through the frozen landscape so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did smash that like button below don't forget to subscribe also check out today's fantastic sponsor or should i say brilliant sponsor brilliant link below thank you for watching you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 461,435

Rating: 4.8647041 out of 5

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Id: CUUqzn_nR5Y

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 19 2020