China will start building its first floating nuclear power plant in 2019.  A floating nuclear power plant is a marine platform carrying a scaled-down or minuscule nuclear reactor to power islets and offshore drilling platforms that may otherwise have little or no access to the onshore grid supply.  Analysts have associated these novel marine nuclear power stations with Beijing’s initiatives to militarize and “colonize” the South China Sea and turn its vast waters into a Chinese lake…

Mobile nuclear reactors could power the many man-made islands being created in the South China Sea, while transmitting electricity from the mainland would be expensive and conventional diesel generators could not meet the demand amid an expanding population of soldiers, constructors and residents….Observers say that as many as 20 floating nuclear stations could be needed across the South China Sea for new chunks of land created on reefs and shoals, especially in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos that are subject to conflicting territorial claims by China and Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan.  These reactors can also sail and power the many Chinese drilling platforms in the ocean to expedite the exploitation of oil, natural gas as well as “combustible ice,” a frozen mixture of water and concentrated natural gas found on the sea floor.

Exerpts from Ocean-going nuclear plants for South China Sea, Asia Times, Mar. 2019