4 ms·

NS Savannah (one has to wonder why nobody mentions the German Otto Hahn, but whatever), was decomissioned for economical reasons. Heck, the only nuclear powered

by hef19898 3y ago

NS Savannah (one has to wonder why nobody mentions the German Otto Hahn, but whatever), was decomissioned for economical reasons. Heck, the only nuclear powered vessels the US Navy has are carriers and subs, even the lastest British carriers aren't nuclear powered anymore. All in all, besides the niche need of the Russians for nuclear powered icebreakers, there were three civilian nuclear ships: NS Savannah (economical failure), Otto Hahn (likewise and retrofitted with a diesel engine) and the Japanese one (forgot the name, but that was both a technological and economical disaster). And that is ignoring the fact that naval nuclear reactors are among the most well guarded secrets a nation has, none of that tech will ever see civilian use for that alone (the current generation thaz is, the reactors used in the three vessels mentioned showed already to be unfeasible for commercial use). Edit: Nuclear power is nowhere near to be a risk for wind and solar, wind alone adds multiple NPPs worth of capacity to the grid every month while the added net nuclear capacity is basically negligible for decades now. Nuclear is not, and won't be, built at scale in the next decades. Only potential exceptions are India (good, otherwise they would build coal plants) and China (purely political, and at the same time Chine is building even solar and wind power than nuclear).

Manuel_D 3y ago
There's also the Sevmorput: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput Even just one example is an infinitely larger fleet of nuclear powered cargo ships than green-fuel powered cargo ships. Nuclear maritime propulsion isn't exactly a mystery. The basic operating principle of both pressurized water reactors and lead cooled reactors are known. All of the West's main geopolitical rivals (Russia, China) already have nuclear powered submarines - I'm not sure how you think technology for nuclear powered cargo ships are going tip the balance militarily.
- hef19898 3y ago
  This is pointless. The reason no nation on earth will green ligjt the use of it military maritime reactor tech for commercial use simple: this tech is secret and nobody wants the knowledge of said tech fall into opposition hands. ITAR is childs play in comparison. This means, new reactor tech needs to be developed from basically scratch. And no, the mere handful of Russian icebreakers, and that one cargo ship which is half an icebreaker, don't count. Not if we talk about thousand of commercial vessels in operation. One last question: Do you think we are faster to develop and build the tech and infrastructure for green fuels (which are needed everywhere from ships to planes) or to develop and build the industrial base to produce hundreds of small scale maritime nuclear reactors (for we don't even have the reactor tech yet)?
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    Hundreds of maritime nuclear reactors are already in operation. And the technology has already been deployed to civilian ships by four different countries. Your statement that no nation will greenlight maritime nuclear propulsion for civilian use is just factually incorrect. Countries did approve the use of nuclear maritime propulsion in ships. You even listed three examples yourself - you disproved your own claim. Nuclear maritime propulsion is demonstrably closer to production than synthetic fuels. The former has been used in hundreds of warships and four cargo ships over the span of half a century. The latter is currently only produced using concentrated CO2 from biomass or other industrial byproducts (which is not something available at scale), and are not used for maritime propulsion.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Why is it that, that people always underestimate the technical complexities of thise things. a) military nuclear technology will never see civilian use, claiming otherwise is beyond naive and ignorant b) civilian nuclear powered vessels have been tried and deemed uneconomical (no, one specialized cargo ship requiring the power from a nuclear reactor to break through 1.5 m of ice doesn't count...) - so far a grand total of 600 maritime reactors (see point one for the military part) in history have been built globally, 400 or so of which are still in operation, in order to decarbonize global shipping that is close to the number of reactors needed yearly, and not even the military providers have the capacity to build that many (e.g. the Russians built, what, six of those since 2014!) You keep hand-waving all of that away...
      - Manuel_D 3y ago
        Again, we have four different countries that built civilian nuclear powered cargo ships. I don't doubt that designing maritime nuclear power for these ships was challenging. But it has already been done. The technology already does exist. The NS Savannah, Otto Hahn, and the Mutsu all used low enriched uranium in their reactors (as opposed to the highly enriched uranium used in military reactors). That's the main challenge in adapting nuclear power to civilian use, and it's already been solved. By comparison, how many green fuel powered cargo ships have been in operation for over a decade? If hundreds of nuclear powered vessels operated for over half a century is too immature, then green fuel powered ships are even less mature that nuclear maritime propulsion.

Manuel_D 3y ago

There's also the Sevmorput: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput Even just one example is an infinitely larger fleet of nuclear powered cargo ships than green-fuel powered cargo ships. Nuclear maritime propulsion isn't exactly a mystery. The basic operating principle of both pressurized water reactors and lead cooled reactors are known. All of the West's main geopolitical rivals (Russia, China) already have nuclear powered submarines - I'm not sure how you think technology for nuclear powered cargo ships are going tip the balance militarily.

hef19898 3y ago
This is pointless. The reason no nation on earth will green ligjt the use of it military maritime reactor tech for commercial use simple: this tech is secret and nobody wants the knowledge of said tech fall into opposition hands. ITAR is childs play in comparison. This means, new reactor tech needs to be developed from basically scratch. And no, the mere handful of Russian icebreakers, and that one cargo ship which is half an icebreaker, don't count. Not if we talk about thousand of commercial vessels in operation. One last question: Do you think we are faster to develop and build the tech and infrastructure for green fuels (which are needed everywhere from ships to planes) or to develop and build the industrial base to produce hundreds of small scale maritime nuclear reactors (for we don't even have the reactor tech yet)?
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Hundreds of maritime nuclear reactors are already in operation. And the technology has already been deployed to civilian ships by four different countries. Your statement that no nation will greenlight maritime nuclear propulsion for civilian use is just factually incorrect. Countries did approve the use of nuclear maritime propulsion in ships. You even listed three examples yourself - you disproved your own claim. Nuclear maritime propulsion is demonstrably closer to production than synthetic fuels. The former has been used in hundreds of warships and four cargo ships over the span of half a century. The latter is currently only produced using concentrated CO2 from biomass or other industrial byproducts (which is not something available at scale), and are not used for maritime propulsion.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Why is it that, that people always underestimate the technical complexities of thise things. a) military nuclear technology will never see civilian use, claiming otherwise is beyond naive and ignorant b) civilian nuclear powered vessels have been tried and deemed uneconomical (no, one specialized cargo ship requiring the power from a nuclear reactor to break through 1.5 m of ice doesn't count...) - so far a grand total of 600 maritime reactors (see point one for the military part) in history have been built globally, 400 or so of which are still in operation, in order to decarbonize global shipping that is close to the number of reactors needed yearly, and not even the military providers have the capacity to build that many (e.g. the Russians built, what, six of those since 2014!) You keep hand-waving all of that away...
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      Again, we have four different countries that built civilian nuclear powered cargo ships. I don't doubt that designing maritime nuclear power for these ships was challenging. But it has already been done. The technology already does exist. The NS Savannah, Otto Hahn, and the Mutsu all used low enriched uranium in their reactors (as opposed to the highly enriched uranium used in military reactors). That's the main challenge in adapting nuclear power to civilian use, and it's already been solved. By comparison, how many green fuel powered cargo ships have been in operation for over a decade? If hundreds of nuclear powered vessels operated for over half a century is too immature, then green fuel powered ships are even less mature that nuclear maritime propulsion.