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They’re the US Navy. You wanna have a civilian ship powered by a nuclear reactor sailing past Somalia? Or pull an Exxon Valdez?
by ciabattabread 3y ago
They’re the US Navy. You wanna have a civilian ship powered by a nuclear reactor sailing past Somalia? Or pull an Exxon Valdez?
- junofan 3y agoNuclear materials already move intercontinentally on commercial ships. Somalian pirates can already pull an Exxon Valdez using commercial oil tankers.
- titzer 3y agoAlso note that the potential for catastrophic meltdown / contamination is proportional to how much fuel you have on board. If you only have ~3 months fuel for a 20MW reactor, then it's not like a 3-mile-island or Chernobyl situation. There are plenty of modern reactor designs that don't turn into a giant cloud of radioactive smoke under duress, but shut down relatively calmly and safely.