1) What civilian possibilities would floating nuclear power plants provide to a maritime country with such as China? How hard would it be to sustain such an infrastructure for China at its current level of industrial and nuclear capabilities?

China can use floating nuclear power plants for disaster zones, such as typhoons, tsunamis and floods. Inland, for earthquakes, fires, etc., “floating” becomes “mobile”. Inland, they can be used for isolated infrastructure projects. In a country the size of China, with 1.4 billion citizens, prone to natural disasters and faraway projects in the western half of the country, the possibilities are endless.

The other great advantage in China is that the electric grid is 100% people owned via the state-owned enterprise China Grid. Beijing can skip all the negotiations that Western private utilities would be pushing, for maximum profit. “We need as floating/mobile nuclear power plant here now!” Not a problem in China.

 2) How easily these possibilities can be converted into military applications such as powering of installations and equipment? How dramatically would such infrastructure enhance a force-projecting capability of a country like China? 

Just as the civilian possibilities are endless in the civilian sector, the same goes for military use. China has built numerous, sophisticated military installations across the South China Sea. A hard-wired nuclear power plant could be hit by NATO missiles, but a floating/mobile one around and on the islands would be much more evasive and harder to target. Further out, if Taiwan is pushed by Washington to declare independence, the Mainland would invade the island in a matter of hours. Floating nuclear power plants could be used by the PLA Navy to power coastal installation as the assault progresses.

 3) How large of an open-sea territory can you control and monitor with one such power plant?

It all depends on connectivity. A floating/mobile nuclear power plant is worthless, if it is not connected to an electrical grid of some sort. The floating variety can go inland, but how to link it to light up the grid? Mobile versions are more versatile, as they could be moved to existing power generation plants to plug in there.

 4) China will be the second country to deploy a floating nuclear power plant after Russia. In terms of maritime force-projecting capability, how big of a challenge does this infrastructure create for the US Pacific fleet?

Russia/USSR already had a technological lead in mobile nuclear power plants, with a sophisticated submarine fleet that spanned the globe during the Cold War. Today, Russia is at the cutting edge for nuclear powered icebreakers in the Arctic, which are essentially “floating” power plants. The fact that Russia and China are conducting frequent naval exercises together in the Pacific and cooperating to put a nuclear power plant on the Moon suggests that this collaboration is broad-based. Technologically, they complement each other well in this domain.

NATO will have a hard time keeping up with the two leading nuclear energy countries working hand in hand to use floating/mobile power plants for both civilian and military uses, on Earth and in outer space.

[google-translator]