Safeguards and the international legal and regulatory implications needed to be thoroughly analysed as interest grows in floating nuclear power plants and more countries assess their viability and potential applications, an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna heard.

Opening the meeting, IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said that in many countries “there is active consideration of floating nuclear power plants”.

He said interest is growing in installing small modular reactors (SMRs) on floating barges or platforms to provide clean electricity and heat for remote coastal locations, to decarbonise offshore oil and gas or mining activities, or even to provide grid scale electricity production, unlocking cost reductions through serial production in shipyards.

But it is the very mobility of these floating nuclear plants that raises new questions, particularly when they move across international borders or operate in international, rather than territorial, waters.