Environmental organizations have long criticized Russia’s plans to build such plants, saying they are vulnerable to accidents on the high seas.

But Russia has pushed forward with the program, justifying it as a way of bringing power to some of the country’s most remote areas. The head of Russia’s atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Sunday that the plants will be safe.

“This plant is much safer than atomic energy stations on the ground,” the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying at a formal ceremony that included giving certificates to workers at the Sevmash fabricating plant in Severodvinsk on the White Sea coast.

He cited the 2000 sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk — one of Russia’s most noteworthy recent accidents — as evidence of the reliability of the plants, which will use reactors similar to those on the submarine.

“The most reliable test of such a reactor was the Kursk tragedy,” he said, according to RIA-Novosti. “After the boat was raised, specialists proved that the reactor could be put into service that very moment.”

The atomic energy agency and Sevmash on Sunday signed a document on intentions to build six more floating power plants, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.

It cited the atomic energy agency as saying that talks were under way on selling the plants to unspecified Asian and African countries as well as to Russian regions.

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