Arktika is a nuclear icebreaker. Ships of this type are the largest and most powerful in the world.
She stretches 569 feet (173.3 meters) and runs on a pair of RITM-200 reactors instead of diesel engines.
Each one makes 175 megawatts of heat. That heat boils water into steam. The steam spins generators, and 60 megawatts reach the propeller shafts, the push that drives the hull through the ice.
Why not diesel?
A nuclear icebreaker is more powerful, and in the ice there is often nowhere to take on fuel.
The fuel is reloaded every seven years.
In open water she makes about 25 mph. In ice nearly 5 feet thick, speed drops to about 14 mph.
A second trick sits below the waterline.
Her draft, how deep she sits, can change. The same ship works in deep Arctic seas and in the shallow channels of Siberian rivers.
She replaces the heavy icebreakers of the older Arktika type and the smaller Taymyr type.
The fleet loses no job.
Only the running cost falls.
And the length?
A little over half the height of the Eiffel Tower. Only this half does not stand on shore.
It splits ice.
Diesel stops when the tank runs dry.
The reactor counts years, not the tank.
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