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The hard part is the very highly enriched uranium. To make a compact and light naval reactor you need very pure U-235. I am not allowed to even say how pure, bu
by ok_dad 4y ago
The hard part is the very highly enriched uranium. To make a compact and light naval reactor you need very pure U-235. I am not allowed to even say how pure, but trust it costs obscene amounts to do so. If it could be done safely I’d be for it, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
- krasin 4y ago>To make a compact and light naval reactor you need very pure U-235 Yes, with the reactor designs used by US Navy. Akademik Lomonosov ([1]), a floating nuclear plant, uses "low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, with 14.1% average enrichment, with a fuel cycle of 3 years". Commercial atomic container ships will likely be closer to Akademik Lomonosov than the US Navy fleet. And that's fine. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
- ok_dad 4y agoCool, yea it looks like the "KLT-40S" reactor can do LEU, so at least that part is a bit cheaper. I still think it's not a great idea, nor would it still be economical except for maybe some very specific applications, but perhaps it's more realistic than I thought. Maybe you could have a very large ship, larger than could go into a port, and it could perhaps ferry cargo around the world and as it reaches ports it offloads the cargo onto some waiting barges to be tugged into port? I imagine you would need to ship a LOT of goods FAST to make it worthwhile to use nuclear.