24 Comments

  1. Nuclear shipping is a total no-brainer, with cargo ships only getting larger over time it becomes a even bigger no-brainer the further we look into the future.

    Frankly I don’t see why it couldn’t be done for cruise ships as well, the lack of things burning nearby would probably only enhance the experience for those on board.

    Moreover, not paying for marine diesel lets you to do things like plow through the water as fast as your reactor output and motors will permit for days on end which might make the idea of passenger liners plausible again. I’ve always kind of liked the notion of traveling by ocean, and in addition it would allow for mass trans-continental travel should fossil fuel depletion/regulation make air travel prohibitively expensive.

    Which is a much better future than what I’ve seen many “small is beautiful, one with the Earth” types say about global travel:

    Namely they say in the post-fossil future you don’t.

    I don’t have a link in front of me at the second, but one idea I’ve seen for ship reactors is that you’d tow the reactor behind the ship in its own separate pod. That way if trying to bring a nuclear ship into a particular country is either disallowed or at least a giant legal snarl (See: New Zealand) you’d be able to detach it in international waters, continue in with diesels and pick it up on the way out.

    It would also mean that if a ship sank the reactor wouldn’t go down with it, thus eliminating potential hand wringing about leaving them on the seafloor or having to salvage them.

  2. I like the idea – shipping is a major user of fossil fuels at the moment. Add on process heat and electricity and you can really make a difference to fossil fuel consumption.

    The reactor needs not only to be “walk away” safe but highly tamper resistant. Threats could come from pirates in many of the worlds oceans, environmental activists or straight extortionists. Some collusion would have to be assumed (whether willing or forced) from the crew. How would that be achieved? Weld the primary plant into it’s own compartment?

    Even in that case, a sufficiently motivated adversary could always do mischief given enough time. I’d expect the navies of the world to have a role in ensuring that any hijacked vessel is retaken before such a time. An analogy is safes – no safe is perfect, they’re rated for the amount of time and violence required to open them. If a safe can resist attack for 30 minutes, the police will be there.

    1. @Murray Chapman

      I am not going to claim that security is a non-issue, but by their very nature, shipboard reactor plants will be inside a tightly secured containment. That boundary will probably not be “welded” shut because there are times when, under controlled conditions with the reactor shut down, it might be necessary for people to enter the containment to perform a repair or inspection.

      However, the boundary can be bolted and lockwired shut so that it takes a substantial amount of time to enter.

      There are ways to engineer the appropriate level of security.

  3. Very soberingly articles. Dismaying to know small thinking prevails New York Maritime College! Maybe part of it is that it’s infected with the anti-nuclear bent of SUNY and the local NYC neighborhood — nearby Staten Island shucked having thousands of jobs by having the navy homeport for nuclear warships here, just spitting distance of where the Monitor and major WWII battleships were built. Long long ago a proposal to vie to host the Savannah there was shot down in the bud before it even got in the running. This attractive compact campus is probably the most familiar and visible of all in the whole country (though maybe not that many know it is one) because the millions who commute or drive across the East River between Queens and the Bronx via the Whitestone Bridge readily see it lining the waterfront like a park, and you literally drive high over part of it on the sweeping Throgs Neck bridge — one of if not the most beautiful panoramas of Long Island Sound and the boroughs you can see anywhere. If only their nuclear vistas were so wide!

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

  4. Commercial nuclear ship propulsion is the right idea for large ocean going cargo vessels. However, I foresee a significant issue with getting those ships allowed into ports. Having worked at Naval Reactors (I left NR just over two years ago), it was repeatedly stressed that the safety record of nuclear US naval vessels is the main (if not the only) reason our carriers and subs are allowed into many of the ports around the world (by comparison, Russian nuclear naval vessels are not allowed into many foreign ports, or so I was told, because of their poor safety record).

    Additionally, you mention that NR is (or was) an obstacle to commercial naval nuclear propulsion. I am not sure this would be true anymore. The shrinking industrial base for the NR program is an issue as we are completely reliant on B&W for many of the major reactor compartment components. If a company were to pursue commercial naval nuclear propulsion, it might act to beneficially expand the current industrial base (i.e., if such a company were to grow the industrial base and not simply compete for the same resources).

    RK

    1. @RK

      Additionally, you mention that NR is (or was) an obstacle to commercial naval nuclear propulsion. I am not sure this would be true anymore. The shrinking industrial base for the NR program is an issue as we are completely reliant on B&W for many of the major reactor compartment components. If a company were to pursue commercial naval nuclear propulsion, it might act to beneficially expand the current industrial base (i.e., if such a company were to grow the industrial base and not simply compete for the same resources).

      That is good to hear. You might be interested in reading a couple of pieces I wrote recently about the potential benefits of active encouragement from NR to develop a civilian nuclear ship industry in the US.

      https://atomicinsights.com/naval-reactors-empowered-show-way/

      https://atomicinsights.com/root-cause-naval-reactors-policy-strict-secrecy-nuclear-propulsion-plant-design/

      FYI – I worked for B&W for three years after I retired from the Navy.

  5. “cargo ships burn some of the nastiest things for fuel. They are one of the top polluters.”

    Yes, they are using the ‘waste’, the stuff with no other economic value. If it wasn’t being burned, they’d probably just dump it in the oceans, like they used to do with gasoline before the advent of the gasoline powered internal combustion engine. In they early days, they were only refining to get home heating oil, gasoline went into the rivers that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico.

  6. With China’s decision to speed up their molten salt reactor program yesterday, I would not be surprised if this creates the conditions for them to capture the world market for freighters by powering them with small modular reactors based on this technology. And of course, this has immense naval implications. Meanwhile, the USA shuts down very serviceable reactors (San Onofre, Vermont Yankee, Wisconsin) due to cutthroat natural gas interests, ably assisted by green morons, Sen. Boxer, Sen. Sanders and other vote panderers. The US Navy appears to be willing to row its oars in the wake of an all-nuclear Chinese Navy, at the rate things are going.

  7. “Meanwhile, the USA shuts down very serviceable reactors (San Onofre, Vermont Yankee, Wisconsin) due to cutthroat natural gas interests, ably assisted by green morons, Sen. Boxer, Sen. Sanders and other vote panderers.”

    The people get what they voted for, and thus they get what they themselves have determined they deserve. I proudly did NOT vote that way and have not since I started voting in 1976.

    1. Ignorance is not bliss for these voters. Voting for change to prepare for future generations is not a consideration among most people. That’s because the people interests are generally shallow. Immediate needs trumps the long term. The notion that reading up on anything that requires learning science is not self-serving enough in their view.

      I’m thinking for any real change to happen we need to only allow young people to vote. Maybe 18 to 35. I am in my fifties and obviously I would resent being excluded from voting but the sad truth is that the majority of self-serving voters out there are the over 35 crowd.

      1. “I’m thinking for any real change to happen we need to only allow young people to vote. Maybe 18 to 35”

        The only result to be realized by such a policy would be the resulting shift in the crap fed to us via the campaign process. The lies are simply fabricated to fit the audience.

        Obama was elected by appealing to the voter bloc you admire. How has that worked out? Less war?? More transparency? Less intrusion into our private and personal communications? In many areas, Obama is Bush on steroids. Is there really much difference between these left/right scumbags being placed in power, beyond the BS they feed us to get there?

        1. POA

          I agree that for all the so-called difference in outlook Bush and Obama have had surprisingly similar results. We can guess who is doing the manipulating. The presidents have less power than most people think.

          I was responding to Paul’s statement “The people get what they voted for”
          I don’t agree that the people get what they vote for. And I don’t feel the voters should have known better. They got deception for what they voted for. That is more accurate. I don’t know how the votes were split demographically and what motivations people had making them but I do see a pattern. Voters are not getting the results they hope for in both the last two presidents.

          I generalize, but the idea that voters who fear their own deaths are likely to vote conservative is not far fetched. How else do you explain Bush Jr. getting two terms as president? Those who are over 35 start thinking more about their mortality. And fear was packaged and sold during the Bush years.

          Political manipulation is backed by corporate manipulation and that explains a lot of what has happened with nuclear energy. The science vacuum in the government needs people like us to fill it. The way to avoid deception and manipulation is to insist that politicians start consulting the experts. Don’t let non-science, non-engineering majors run a world that has become dependent on so much science and engineering. Our jobs are to convince people this is true.

          1. @Rick Maltese

            Don’t let non-science, non-engineering majors run a world that has become dependent on so much science and engineering. Our jobs are to convince people this is true.

            One does not need to be a science or engineering major to be good at math or aware of the importance of science and technology. I’m an advocate of a liberal education in the Jeffersonian or John Paul Jones sense of the word. Education (including arts, music and literature) is more exciting and rewarding — over the long term — than spending too much time on entertainment.

          2. @Rod
            I agree with you. In the end you’ll be happier when a politician consults with an expert such as yourself rather than say another politician about energy issues.

          3. “Don’t let non-science, non-engineering majors run a world that has become dependent on so much science and engineering. Our jobs are to convince people this is true”

            Trouble is, the politicians have the bully pulpit.

            “Sound science” has become whatever they choose to tell us it is, depending upon thier specific agendas. Agendas, I might add, pursued at the behest of whatever special interest financed their very expensive slither into office.

            The Supreme Court decision to basically allow the concealment of the sources of huge sums of campaign funds was, in my opinion, a nail in the coffin of what was meant to be a “representative” form of government.

            If the science doesn’t dovetail with the agenda, then your odds of “convincing people of the truth” become slim indeed. The “truth” has become a commodity that must be ferreted out with no small effort. It is no longer imported into your living room by a responsible Fourth Estate. It disgusts me every time I stumble into Fox News and hear the “fair and balanced” BS, when just a casual ear cannot fail to discern the blatant bias in thier presentation of “the news”. Or turn to CNN or MSNBC and get the opposite spectrum of partisan horse crap bundled into an illusion of reality.

            I don’t envy your task, nor do I hold much hope that it is even possible for you to talk in a louder voice than your energy adversaries. They are too entrenched, and they have the microphone.

            Rod mentions the importance of marketing, and its no secret that I have harped on it since I arrived here. Andrea too, seems to realize the necessity of a strong and loud commercial marketing campaign.

            But even if the industry does finally pony up the huge sums need to institute such a campaign, you still have the major hurdle of changing how the media represents you in its presentation of “news”. Where is your industry’s Koch Brothers? George Soros? Who will come up with the vast sums of money it takes to buy the election of the scumbag politicians that have the clout to write MSNBC’s or Fox News’ script for the day? Unless you can find a cabal of obscenely wealthy sugar daddies willing to roll around in the dirt doing battle with a seething mass of maggots, your “truth” is just a whisper in the wind.

          4. “I was responding to Paul’s statement “The people get what they voted for”
            I don’t agree that the people get what they vote for. And I don’t feel the voters should have known better”

            “What the people vote for” is an equation that can be worked out easily, enabling the creation of a popular and electable marrionette.

            In my opinion, Obama is the perfect example. His script was written perfectly for his role. After 8 years of that hapless monkey Bush being dragged around on the leash held by Cheney and crew, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the people wanted to hear. But they needed an unknown, a blank canvas, because the regular players had played too cozy with the neocon agenda. Hope and change was the logical tune, and Obama sang it like a Diva.

            It would be interesting to fast forward a couple decades and see how history presents this time period. These scumbags are bound and determined to once more have our kids diving under thier desks every time the teacher screams “DROP!!!”.

            Interesting times we live in. You woulda thought the Al Qaeda boogie man was enough to row thier agenda up the river, but now it seems they feel the need to resurrect the “commies” to complement their crew of monsters manning the oars.

    2. “The people get what they voted for”

      Unfortunately, I’m getting what **they** voted for…

  8. I always thought a next step might be for Disney to have their next cruise ship nuclear powered. Royal Caribbean might also be a good “candidate”. Could they just hire Navy veterans to run the reactors? I this case, maybe the companies should just keep the fact that is nuclear powered low key and not hype it. If anyone asks on the Disney ship, people could just say its “magic”. Walt would be happy.

    But what do I know, Rod says I am a misanthrope and such a bad boy!

    1. At last, a potential mascot for the pro nuke crowd!

      The question is, will it be Mickey Mouse, or that stuttering idiot, Goofy? Choose carefully, your future might be at stake.

      1. Actually, once this ship is built and successful there might be something like a Mickey logo with an atomic orbit around it: o o, a hidden mickey if you will
        O

        1. Well…..’ol Professor McDuck doesn’t seem to be getting the job done. Maybe its time for a new approach.

  9. Sorry to interrupt the lively discussion, but…
    Comments/questions on “Strategies for the Success of Nuclear Powered Shipping” by Benjamin Haas.

    PDF page 13
    • Current pressurized water technology, as the world’s nuclear navies uses on their submarines and as used in current electricity generating plants, does not allow passive safety in the case of meltdowns.

    This is contrary to my understanding based on ‘60s vintage navy sub technology. Someone with more current knowledge correct me if I’m wrong, but the two designs I learned (W and CE) both had long term passive cooling. The plants were “walk away” safe, requiring no external electric power for long term core decay heat removal via natural circulation (gravity). The only thing required was keep the heat sink full of water. If cool down water system contraction is a concern it can be overcome with a passive pressurized accumulator tank. If the design requirement requires permanent loss of all electric power combined with a LOCA, even that is not inherently difficult. The USN currently has two of these on the bottom of the ocean. Even if the cores are melted the total radiation source term does not change (other than decrease with time). If it was leaking out of the coolant system it is contained within that portion of the hull pressure boundary. If it was leaking to the ocean it would be known. By my understanding these designs were totally passively safe.

    PDF page 28 and following
    • “In the case of the construction of nuclear reactors, the greatest influence is from nuclear specific quality controls.”
    • “There should be a significant area of research devoted to what is making nuclear construction/capital costs so high and what can be done to reduce them. This, after all, is the biggest issue the industry faces.”
    • “An example of this in the modern era are the delays faced by the current construction of two nuclear reactors in South Carolina caused by missing documentation for the manufacturing of certain components.”

    You can’t emphasize this too much and the discussion needs to be beefed up. Currently you are addressing symptoms not root causes. Some history; the explosion of nuclear construction in the ‘70s and ‘80s diluted both the construction management and the labor pool expertise. The appreciation for the “nuisance of paperwork” got lost. We face the same problem today, because the lack of 30 or 40 years of experience in labor, manufacturing, and documenting for these standards.

    Cases in point; the Zimmer Plant was 100% done but had no weld QA program documentation. The welds may have been 100% satisfactory, but the regulator’s rightful position is you can’t prove it, so they are all junk. Do them all over, result… abandoned. Marble Hill, 2 units, 50% and 30% done, same issue but it’s the concrete QA. Do it over because it’s junk; result… abandoned. Same problem as you discuss with the S.C. reactor construction, a QA problem in the sub-base rebar. The US is currently not prepared to work to these standards on mass production scales, yet mass construction is required for the cost feasibility to be attainable.

    This is a real problem, and it can undo the SMRs if they ever move to manufacturing and construction. All problems cost money to solve, so factor in a solution and its cost. It is not simply training, you must believe in the process.

    The Regulatory Issue
    First, I am in favor of your proposal. When it comes to the regulatory issue, the USNRC cannot deal with this problem. They are responsible (among other contributors) for the current high cost of commercial nuclear generating facilities. So you will need a totally new, separate regulatory structure. The cost of that is the responsibility of the ship owners. When you factor that in including all the special interests involved, you will lose. It is not just the fuel cost; it is the total infrastructure required to make it happen.
    When fossil fuel companies (who run our government), and special interests, can successfully shut down operating nuke plants, how will you get them to agree with this plan? It uses substantially less oil; they don’t want it to happen. Unfortunately it is the reality we face.

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