Last weekend, Russia's floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, was towed out to sea for the first time, beginning its voyage from St Petersburg to Murmansk, where it will be eventually loaded up with nuclear fuel and started up sometime in 2019.

The reveal of this mammoth and imposing floating structure was unsurprisingly widely criticized, with Greenpeace calling it a "floating nightmare" and a potential "Chernobyl on ice." Of course, Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation, suggests its design, dubbed a Floating Nuclear Thermal Power Plant (FNPP) is safe and well-prepared for any potential disasters.

"The FNPP is designed with the great margin of safety that exceeds all possible threats and makes nuclear reactors invincible for tsunamis and other natural disasters," Rosatom claims in a statement. "In addition, the nuclear processes at the floating power unit meet all requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and do not pose any threat to the environment."