A Russian Ex-Con’s ‘100% no risk…’ Business Venture
Page October 16th, 2007
A couple of years ago, I thought about setting up a blog called www.BloggingReallyBadIdeas.com. So many possible fluff entries, so little time: The Spice Girls Reunion, inviting Tom Cruise to be on one’s talk show, Jelly Shoes™, Warrant… . And so many possible serious entries: commanding an oil tanker while drunk, producing a frightening mixture of organics, acids, and high level nuclear waste, and putting it in open trenches and single-wall tanks, and, most recently, Russian floating nuclear reactors.
This story caught my eye back in August. I’m going to post the video first, then the link to the article. As if the proposal wasn’t bad enough, they had to add really crappy Eastern European techno music. Absolutely surreal:
It gets even better. From the 7 August 2007 Wall Street Journal:
In an industrial park in northern Jakarta, traders hawk electronics and pirated DVDs. From a steel-grated storefront here, Alexander Chilikov is trying to sell a floating nuclear power plant.
“There’s 100% no risk,” says Mr. Chilikov, a 44-year-old former vodka salesman from Russia who says he spent six years in prison there. “If you have the information, you can’t be against this.”
There are so many things wrong on so many levels in the last couple of sentences.
Anyway, more on this Really Bad Idea™:
Last year, Russia began a broad drive to reinvigorate its nuclear industry. Among the initiatives: At a top-secret shipyard in the country’s far north, Russia’s state-run atomic energy company is overseeing construction on the first of what it says will be a fleet of reactor-equipped ships. The vessels are meant to provide electricity to remote areas, mooring just offshore and supplying enough power to run a small city. Russian officials say the floating plants have generated strong interest among foreign customers.
In countries such as Indonesia and Russia, ad hoc personal ties are often critical to getting business done. That has opened the way for self-styled brokers such as Mr. Chilikov. Billing himself as an intermediary, he has built contacts with the governor of a poor province on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, Russian power-company executives and a Moscow lawmaker. Last year, Mr. Chilikov led an Indonesian delegation to Moscow to discuss the floating power plants, participants in the meetings say.
The article mentions that the idea has often been “floated”, so to speak, and mentions that Rep. Jim Barton (R-ExxonTexas) once proposed using nuclear powered Naval vessels as an energy source. Russia’s program was put on the back burner for many years; however, theystarted building their first floating nuclear reactor this year.
In the WSJ article, we learn more about the Indonesian part of the story:
Back in Jakarta, Mr. Chilikov began shopping the idea around. Bambang Waskito, a former senior official in Indonesia’s state-owned electricity company, says he introduced Mr. Chilikov to the governor of the province of Gorontalo.
The governor, Fadel Muhammad, says he jumped at the idea of buying a floating nuclear plant. Gorontalo, which sits at the remote northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, faces almost daily power outages, Mr. Muhammad said in an interview. The blackouts are stymieing his attempts to attract tourism and fisheries investments, he said.
The Indonesian government is more cautious:
Indonesian officials balked at the idea of Mr. Muhammad buying a reactor or transporting one through national waters. The country doesn’t have nuclear power but is looking into building a land-based plant. “I don’t want Indonesia to be used as an experiment,” says As Natio Lasman, deputy chairman of Indonesia’s nuclear agency. A spokesman for the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said Mr. Muhammad cannot proceed without central government permission.
Hell no. And it isn’t just a safety issue: it’s a proliferation issue.
But, as my husband just said “Hey, that music makes me want one. Let’s call the guy and wire him the cash.”
It’s only nuclear power we’re talking about. Wanna buy a watch?