3 ms·
>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 nuclea
by 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.