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Kind of diappointing that the word "nuclear" didn't show up in this article. Exceedingly low-carbon nuclear-powered ships are a very mature technology (Navy), a

Kind of diappointing that the word "nuclear" didn't show up in this article. Exceedingly low-carbon nuclear-powered ships are a very mature technology (Navy), and the shipyard construction environment offers very interesting solutions to the biggest problem with nuclear (cost). For instance, you can serialize production of very large structures. It's Henry Ford to the rescue again but where economies of mass production meet economies of scale. A few merchant ships with nuclear propulsion have sailed before, like the NS Savannah [1]. If we're going to have a serious conversation about low-carbon long-haul shipping it really should involve consideration of the vast and high-density energy resource in the nucleus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah

krasin 9y ago
From what I remember, these container ships are increasingly automated, with fewer and fewer people needed on board. Would not a nuclear container ship reverse this trends? Would the economic effect of going nuclear be larger than the increased spend on salaries?
nabla9 9y ago
First you need to develop a economic naval reactor type that works with minimal manning that keeps the crew within Minimum Safe Manning Certificate. Replacing Pilipino engineering watches with expensive certified nuclear engineers is not cheap. Secondly you need to make them tamper proof. They must withstand terrorism, theft, hijacking and collisions and the core must be easily separated in the case it's needed. Thirdly you need to deploy security force that can retake ships within limited time-frame everywhere they operate. Overall global shipping is has very low CO2 footprint per tonne. Changing to LNG, building thinner and larger ships etc. to reduce CO2 footprint is cheaper.
dredmorbius 9y ago
There are something on the order of 100 shipping hull-losses per decade. That many cores piling up, within the narrow range of most shipping lanes, strikes me as problematic at best. The world shipping fleet is vast, on the order of 50k vessels. Marine nuclear experience is a total of 400 vessels, 170 or so active, most submarines. Several commercial nuclear powered ships were built, the Savannah by the US, and single ships by both Germany, the Otto Hahn, and Japan, Mutsu. All proved uneconomical, the Mutsu had major technical issues, and were either scrapped or converted to conventional fossil propulsion. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shipping_and_safety_the_nuclear_option/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shippin... http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/rmt2014_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/rmt2014_en.pdf http://www.outsideonline.com/1922111/monsterwellen http://www.outsideonline.com/1922111/monsterwellen

krasin 9y ago

From what I remember, these container ships are increasingly automated, with fewer and fewer people needed on board. Would not a nuclear container ship reverse this trends? Would the economic effect of going nuclear be larger than the increased spend on salaries?

nabla9 9y ago

First you need to develop a economic naval reactor type that works with minimal manning that keeps the crew within Minimum Safe Manning Certificate. Replacing Pilipino engineering watches with expensive certified nuclear engineers is not cheap. Secondly you need to make them tamper proof. They must withstand terrorism, theft, hijacking and collisions and the core must be easily separated in the case it's needed. Thirdly you need to deploy security force that can retake ships within limited time-frame everywhere they operate. Overall global shipping is has very low CO2 footprint per tonne. Changing to LNG, building thinner and larger ships etc. to reduce CO2 footprint is cheaper.

dredmorbius 9y ago

There are something on the order of 100 shipping hull-losses per decade. That many cores piling up, within the narrow range of most shipping lanes, strikes me as problematic at best. The world shipping fleet is vast, on the order of 50k vessels. Marine nuclear experience is a total of 400 vessels, 170 or so active, most submarines. Several commercial nuclear powered ships were built, the Savannah by the US, and single ships by both Germany, the Otto Hahn, and Japan, Mutsu. All proved uneconomical, the Mutsu had major technical issues, and were either scrapped or converted to conventional fossil propulsion. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shipping_and_safety_the_nuclear_option/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shippin... http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/rmt2014_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/rmt2014_en.pdf http://www.outsideonline.com/1922111/monsterwellen http://www.outsideonline.com/1922111/monsterwellen