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A major reason military naval systems are efficient is that they don't need to be refueled very often - but that's because their fuel is highly-enriched uranium

A major reason military naval systems are efficient is that they don't need to be refueled very often - but that's because their fuel is highly-enriched uranium, bomb-grade HEU which 'burns' much cleaner (and can be diverted to an actual gun-type nuclear weapon, Hiroshima-type). That's just not going to happen with commercial shipping. A commercial nuclear-powered cargo ship would have to be refueled on the same time scale as a commercial MOX or LEU reactor, likely raising costs quite a bit over any other fuel. Plus, what harbor would allow commercial nuclear reactors, given the costs of catastrophic failure, without ridiculously expensive levels of security and safeguards?

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Plus, what harbor would allow commercial nuclear reactors, given the costs of catastrophic failure These ports already handle tens of thousands of tons of explosives - the blast in Beirut wa over 1 Kt of TNR equivalent, and all that ammonium nitrate arrived on a single ship. It was basically a small nuclear detonation.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  How many billions did dredging all the Caesium out of the harbour and evacuating the entire area for a few months to avoid the Iodine plume from the nitrate explosion cost?
acidburnNSA 4y ago
The major threat to a nuclear reactor is loss of afterglow heat cooling, which is extra unlikely when you're surrounded by water. That said, one interesting approach is to use ocean-faring nuclear-powered tugs that basically stay out in international water and hand off massive container barges to little fossil fueled short-haul ones that can take it in to port where people are afraid of nuclear fission but don't care about air pollution or climate change. As for refueling, it's true that submarines don't need to refuel for 30 years. But there's a lot more room on a container ship, so you can make a big core and run it at less than full power. This way you can get it to only need refueling every 5 years or so with low-enriched uranium. Not bad. Nuclear tugs: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963.tb04392.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-3584....
- wbl 4y ago
  Or use battery for tugs given low duty cycle and access to shore
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    Ah yes that would actually be a great combo.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> Plus, what harbor would allow commercial nuclear reactors, given the costs of catastrophic failure These ports already handle tens of thousands of tons of explosives - the blast in Beirut wa over 1 Kt of TNR equivalent, and all that ammonium nitrate arrived on a single ship. It was basically a small nuclear detonation.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
How many billions did dredging all the Caesium out of the harbour and evacuating the entire area for a few months to avoid the Iodine plume from the nitrate explosion cost?

acidburnNSA 4y ago

The major threat to a nuclear reactor is loss of afterglow heat cooling, which is extra unlikely when you're surrounded by water. That said, one interesting approach is to use ocean-faring nuclear-powered tugs that basically stay out in international water and hand off massive container barges to little fossil fueled short-haul ones that can take it in to port where people are afraid of nuclear fission but don't care about air pollution or climate change. As for refueling, it's true that submarines don't need to refuel for 30 years. But there's a lot more room on a container ship, so you can make a big core and run it at less than full power. This way you can get it to only need refueling every 5 years or so with low-enriched uranium. Not bad. Nuclear tugs: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1963.tb04392.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-3584....

wbl 4y ago
Or use battery for tugs given low duty cycle and access to shore
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Ah yes that would actually be a great combo.