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I don’t really buy this argument. Maritime alternatives like hydrogen fuel cells and biodiesel seem like far more realistic plays than installing nuclear reacto

I don’t really buy this argument. Maritime alternatives like hydrogen fuel cells and biodiesel seem like far more realistic plays than installing nuclear reactors on thousands of vessels.

Angostura 2y ago
Not to mention modern sail
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  what modern sail
  - Angostura 2y ago
    Sorry - was thinking about this kind of stuff https://newatlas.com/marine/new-aden-supertanker-sails https://newatlas.com/marine/new-aden-supertanker-sails https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66543643 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66543643
semi-extrinsic 2y ago
Fuel cells don't scale well to multiple megawatts when compared with combustion technologies. Hydrogen is tricky to store. Most likely option is ammonia in steam or gas turbines or large slow ICEs; next most likely option is liquid hydrogen in the same engines. Biofuels is also severely limited in supply and will in the future most likely be reserved for aviation, which is a lot more constrained than shipping etc. when it comes to which fuel options can be retrofitted on existing systems.
- cyberax 2y ago
  Ammonia is simply nonsense. It's not going to happen for a variety of reasons. Liquid hydrogen is an even bigger nonsense. Realistic fuels that are being used now: 1. Methanol. 2. Liquid methane.
  - screcth 2y ago
    How difficult would it be to use nuclear power to make synthetic hydrocarbons?
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      If using electricity, it's "easy", first you split water into hydrogen and then use the Sabatier reaction. Of course, any electricity is fine. One could get (much) higher efficiency by using the heat from a nuclear power plant directly (never producing electricity) but I guess that would have to be a completely custom design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
    - cyberax 2y ago
      Nuclear power by itself? It's useless. It can only produce low-grade industrial heat. If you have spare electricity (from any source), it's easy. Just capture some CO2 and react it with hydrogen with specific catalysts and at a high pressure. You can get methanol directly this way. It's more expensive than fossil fuels at the current prices, so nobody cares.
  - semi-extrinsic 2y ago
    Both of your options have significant CO2 emissions, so they are a no-go in just a few years. Liquid methane is essentially the same as LNG, which is rapidly becoming the most popular fuel for newbuild ships today. But it's about as environmentally friendly as building natural gas powerplant to replace coal - a temporary solution at best. Future solutions need a carbon-free fuel, period.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      There's nothing wrong with CO2 emissions, as long as they remain carbon-neutral. So if you capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then use it to synthesize methanol or methane, then there are no problems with that. Methanol is slightly preferred because methane can leak, and it's a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. However, even most of the CH4 leaks happen near the drilling wells, and in pipelines. It's unlikely that synthetic CH4 will have to be transported over long distances.
credit_guy 2y ago
Exactly. Proliferation will always be a risk with nuclear reactors. We will never have nuclear powered civilian ships, as long as there exist pirates out there. Sure, Russia operates nuclear powered ice-breakers, but there are no pirates in the Arctic Ocean, plus, for Russia the distinction between civilian and military is not all that clear. As for hydrogen, I think ships are the killer app. High pressure tanks or cryogenic tanks benefit from the square-cube law. If you want them to be economical, they need to be really large. They will never make sense for cars, or even trucks, but they can make sense for trains, and certainly for ships.
- pcl 2y ago
  As a lay person, it seems like trains are pretty much always suited to electricity. Adding a power line alongside the existing right of way seems like it’s a pretty straightforward option. What are the conditions in which on-board power storage is preferable?
- to11mtm 2y ago
  > Proliferation will always be a risk with nuclear reactors. Wasn't one of the promises of thorium reactors a much lower risk of non-proliferation? (Here's a fun question, can one make a pebble bed reactor design with pebbles designed such that if a ship sank, could a special magnetic sphere of a 'correct' size pull in the pebbles but keep a safe distance? IDK but trying to think outside the box here...) I think it's worth remembering that for the sake of many ships, we do not need the power-density of an SXX or even an AXX per-se. > As for hydrogen, I think ships are the killer app. High pressure tanks or cryogenic tanks benefit from the square-cube law. If you want them to be economical, they need to be really large. They will never make sense for cars, or even trucks, but they can make sense for trains, and certainly for ships. The bigger the tank, the more rigorous the inspection has to be to avoid risks due to hydrogen embrittlement. I'll admit, I'm -less- worried about that property on a train than a ship, but on a ship I think we'd first need to see good evidence we can maintain things of such size on ground safely.
- nradov 2y ago
  Hydrogen fuel for merchant ships isn't going to happen. Despite some issues with toxicity and pollution, the industry seems to have settled on ammonia as the main replacement for fossil fuels. We might actually get more "nuclear powered" civilian ships, in a way. The reactors will be on land, where they can be properly guarded. And the heat and power will be used to manufacture carbon-neutral liquid fuel.
to11mtm 2y ago
ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? We gotta remember what a lot of the Marine world really looks like, under the covers. That is, lots of them will use HFO aka Residual Fuel oil or 'bunker fuel'. Switching to Biodiesel? Probably the 'cheapest' of the options, not sure what if any implications exist from the switch (lots of ships will stop burning HFO in ports and switch to more common diesel/etc, however not sure if there is a difference in some engines with doing so long term) Hydrogen Fuel cells are likely as much of a 'refit' from a labor standpoint as switching over to a nuclear reactor; Also the general issues of hydrogen embrittelment and the like have not yet been solved AFAIK especially for the volumes needed for large ships, also not sure if there have been a lot of studies as to whether the hydrogen embrittlement problem could lead to larger structural integrity issues on such a vessel. Nuclear, OTOH, has had at least a few 'non-military' ships (mostly nuclear icebreakers) with good success. The current 'whitewashing' strategy of cruise lines is LNG, for whatever -that- is worth... Edit: finger slipped and hit post too early, so a bit was added, apologies!

I don’t really buy this argument. Maritime alternatives like hydrogen fuel cells and biodiesel seem like far more realistic plays than installing nuclear reactors on thousands of vessels.

Angostura 2y ago

Not to mention modern sail

jazzyjackson 2y ago
what modern sail
- Angostura 2y ago
  Sorry - was thinking about this kind of stuff https://newatlas.com/marine/new-aden-supertanker-sails https://newatlas.com/marine/new-aden-supertanker-sails https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66543643 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66543643

semi-extrinsic 2y ago

Fuel cells don't scale well to multiple megawatts when compared with combustion technologies. Hydrogen is tricky to store. Most likely option is ammonia in steam or gas turbines or large slow ICEs; next most likely option is liquid hydrogen in the same engines. Biofuels is also severely limited in supply and will in the future most likely be reserved for aviation, which is a lot more constrained than shipping etc. when it comes to which fuel options can be retrofitted on existing systems.

cyberax 2y ago
Ammonia is simply nonsense. It's not going to happen for a variety of reasons. Liquid hydrogen is an even bigger nonsense. Realistic fuels that are being used now: 1. Methanol. 2. Liquid methane.
- screcth 2y ago
  How difficult would it be to use nuclear power to make synthetic hydrocarbons?
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    If using electricity, it's "easy", first you split water into hydrogen and then use the Sabatier reaction. Of course, any electricity is fine. One could get (much) higher efficiency by using the heat from a nuclear power plant directly (never producing electricity) but I guess that would have to be a completely custom design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
  - cyberax 2y ago
    Nuclear power by itself? It's useless. It can only produce low-grade industrial heat. If you have spare electricity (from any source), it's easy. Just capture some CO2 and react it with hydrogen with specific catalysts and at a high pressure. You can get methanol directly this way. It's more expensive than fossil fuels at the current prices, so nobody cares.
- semi-extrinsic 2y ago
  Both of your options have significant CO2 emissions, so they are a no-go in just a few years. Liquid methane is essentially the same as LNG, which is rapidly becoming the most popular fuel for newbuild ships today. But it's about as environmentally friendly as building natural gas powerplant to replace coal - a temporary solution at best. Future solutions need a carbon-free fuel, period.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    There's nothing wrong with CO2 emissions, as long as they remain carbon-neutral. So if you capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then use it to synthesize methanol or methane, then there are no problems with that. Methanol is slightly preferred because methane can leak, and it's a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. However, even most of the CH4 leaks happen near the drilling wells, and in pipelines. It's unlikely that synthetic CH4 will have to be transported over long distances.

credit_guy 2y ago

Exactly. Proliferation will always be a risk with nuclear reactors. We will never have nuclear powered civilian ships, as long as there exist pirates out there. Sure, Russia operates nuclear powered ice-breakers, but there are no pirates in the Arctic Ocean, plus, for Russia the distinction between civilian and military is not all that clear. As for hydrogen, I think ships are the killer app. High pressure tanks or cryogenic tanks benefit from the square-cube law. If you want them to be economical, they need to be really large. They will never make sense for cars, or even trucks, but they can make sense for trains, and certainly for ships.

pcl 2y ago
As a lay person, it seems like trains are pretty much always suited to electricity. Adding a power line alongside the existing right of way seems like it’s a pretty straightforward option. What are the conditions in which on-board power storage is preferable?
to11mtm 2y ago
> Proliferation will always be a risk with nuclear reactors. Wasn't one of the promises of thorium reactors a much lower risk of non-proliferation? (Here's a fun question, can one make a pebble bed reactor design with pebbles designed such that if a ship sank, could a special magnetic sphere of a 'correct' size pull in the pebbles but keep a safe distance? IDK but trying to think outside the box here...) I think it's worth remembering that for the sake of many ships, we do not need the power-density of an SXX or even an AXX per-se. > As for hydrogen, I think ships are the killer app. High pressure tanks or cryogenic tanks benefit from the square-cube law. If you want them to be economical, they need to be really large. They will never make sense for cars, or even trucks, but they can make sense for trains, and certainly for ships. The bigger the tank, the more rigorous the inspection has to be to avoid risks due to hydrogen embrittlement. I'll admit, I'm -less- worried about that property on a train than a ship, but on a ship I think we'd first need to see good evidence we can maintain things of such size on ground safely.
nradov 2y ago
Hydrogen fuel for merchant ships isn't going to happen. Despite some issues with toxicity and pollution, the industry seems to have settled on ammonia as the main replacement for fossil fuels. We might actually get more "nuclear powered" civilian ships, in a way. The reactors will be on land, where they can be properly guarded. And the heat and power will be used to manufacture carbon-neutral liquid fuel.

to11mtm 2y ago

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh? We gotta remember what a lot of the Marine world really looks like, under the covers. That is, lots of them will use HFO aka Residual Fuel oil or 'bunker fuel'. Switching to Biodiesel? Probably the 'cheapest' of the options, not sure what if any implications exist from the switch (lots of ships will stop burning HFO in ports and switch to more common diesel/etc, however not sure if there is a difference in some engines with doing so long term) Hydrogen Fuel cells are likely as much of a 'refit' from a labor standpoint as switching over to a nuclear reactor; Also the general issues of hydrogen embrittelment and the like have not yet been solved AFAIK especially for the volumes needed for large ships, also not sure if there have been a lot of studies as to whether the hydrogen embrittlement problem could lead to larger structural integrity issues on such a vessel. Nuclear, OTOH, has had at least a few 'non-military' ships (mostly nuclear icebreakers) with good success. The current 'whitewashing' strategy of cruise lines is LNG, for whatever -that- is worth... Edit: finger slipped and hit post too early, so a bit was added, apologies!