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I know nuclear isnt as safe as claimed.. example is in Miami power plant turkey point, shut down recently due to poor function, also of its MAJOR leaking into atlantic and local FL water supply caused by pourous limestone rock... not good, they found radiation from plants in the local community of miami and such... under reported in nytimes and Miami Herald 2021
We have subpar radiation leaking all over... creating safer types may work but pointless when plants like Turkey Point are quite literally leaking into National Park everglades(topic of funding in news right now also).. wake up
Yes it is. It is as clean and safe as it can get while allowing an insanely long operation time before refueling is needed. I really look forward to seeing more and more nuclear powered ships coming into operation in the future.
Tritium leaks are concerning but these are old systems built in the 70's from designs in the 60's. No comparison. Tritium has a short half life anyway.
I'm pretty pro-nuclear but there are a number of factors that leave me skeptical about it's safety in shipping applications; properly trained reactor techs and maintenance isn't cheap, and even if those costs are overshadowed by long term savings, shipping companies tend to be big on cutting corners to save money and cheaping out everywhere they can even when it's both ill advised and, at times, explicitly illegal. There's also the hazards that ships face, from breaking up in a storm at sea to accidents like collisions in harbours, plenty of ships are lost each year. The dangers of radiation are overblown, but that is a _lot_ of potential nuclear accidents every year. You'd basically need apocalypse-proof idiot-proof self-contained zero-maintenance reactors that can survive decades under the unsupervised mercies of all the world's under-trained lowest-possible-wage mariners, and the ship they're in being dashed against the rocks and scattered, along with strict regulations to ensure that reactor-equipped ships have the reactor properly removed and decommissioned instead of being sold to a country where with lax laws for ship breaking. It's not as bad an idea as fission-powered cars, but it's got a lot of obstacles to overcome and half of them are rooted in human greed.
We could start by using a nuclear -powered US Merchant Marine cargo ship. The vessel would be staffed by US Navy nuclear personnel to handle the reactor, and the cargo ship would only go from naval bases in Hawaii and California. The personnel would bring experience to the ship, while going to/from Naval bass would ensure that nuclear support systems are present on both ends of the trip in case of a problem. This would reduce two potential problems in the test, and from there we would have the nuclear cargo ship gathering data with every transit back and forth. Have that cargo ship operating for about a decade to get enough data, for incidents, insurance, work-hours needed, maintenance, costs, etc. That will give us a better source of data about nuclear cargo ships, vs using land-based nuclear reactors to produce fuels for ICE-engined cargo ships.
And thats what itll take cause seas and earth atmosphere probably only has 100 years of hospitable conditions left. Its probably going to be hell in 30 years already the last 50 will be last ones to survive the wars, dying out slowly. Gotta choose reduced profits or dead earth. Profits always win so were screwed.
Molten salt reactors can be designed to be "walk away safe" because of the way they function. The fuel is in liquid form and can't melt down like solid fuel reactors can.
@@LG123ABC still doesn't help leakage if the reactor itself is torn to pieces by storms, collisions, and other accidents ships regularly go through though. The concern here was never how safe the operation of the reactor is, but how safe it is to use a reactor in such an unstable application scenario.
I have actually worked inside a traditional nuclear power plant. I am pretty comfortable with the idea of more nuclear power plants even if they are mobile like in cargo ships. Good topic.
Nuclear ships are great opportunities for global terrorisms. Terrorists will have plenty of opportunities to steal nuclear materials from a nuclear powered ships to create bombs for both global and domestic terrorist activities. The shipping companies will prioritizes making profits and minimize the cost from keeping the nuclear matrials falling into the wrong hand.
Why are you comfortable with the idea of helping generate 20-30 tons of high-level radioactive waste and 50-70 tons of low and intermediate level per year and millions of tons of radioactive tailings to get your fuel? Do you think that is safe? Do you know that nuclear energy is the most expensive form of energy on the market and others will have to pay for waste disposal and health and environmental effects of nuclear reactors? Are you comfortable with all that because that is how you make a living or do you think it is safe and fair? Are there any jobs that you would not do for moral reasons? Are these topics you are willing to discuss or do you want to avoid them because you don't like the answers?
@@jackfanning7952 citation needed. The entire US spent fuel would fit in a football field about 10ft deep. This is also 10-20 times less materials needed than wind and solar to make the same power, before storage and distribution is factored in.
@@orkin2525 I wish nukies would quit believing the NEA lies. Especially ones as asinine as this one. Let me deal with the "10-20 times less material needed than wind and solar" lie first, then the really fun one about the nuke football field. It takes 1 million tons of rich 0.1% uranium ore to generate 7 tons of U-235, which must be enriched to operate a light-water reactor.The tailings still contain most of the radioactivity left in open piles. The reactor uses about 10 tons of enriched U-235 per 12-18 month fuel cycle. We won't quibble over how many 100,000s of tons of concrete and steel are needed to build a reactor or canisters to put them in after they do their dirty work.. Now the football nuclear bomb. What happens when you stack fissionable isotopes together? Criticality produces a self-sustaining fission reaction. Can you spell B-O-M-B? How much high-level nuclear waste do U.S. commercial nuclear reactors produce each year -2000 tons. There are 86,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors in overloaded open pools and casks within 100 miles of every major city in the US. (gao.gov/products/gao-21-603).That is about 35% of the amount of high-level waste at DOE facilities from the Defense (Offense) Department. In Europe, they require hardened structures for this, but not in the U.S. 3.6 million lbs. of spent fuel is stored in 5/8" thick welded canisters at San Onofre, 18" above the water table, 108 feet from the shore at what used to be named "Earthquake Bay"on top of 2 earthquake faults, snuggled right in between 14 million people in LA and San Diego.There is 100 times more cesium-137 in those canisters than was released at Chernobyl. What could possible go wrong? The worldwide standard for canisters is 10-18" thick canisters with bolted, not welded lids. San Onofre has the cheapest casks that the captured NRC regulators will allow. Salt water will corrode them in 10 years. They have been there 18 years. They dropped one a few years ago. Oopsie daisy. Glad it didn't blow Commiefornica off the map. Tell me: are you going to stack this waste from hell on the football field inside the canisters or just dump the fuel assemblies on top of God's green Earth. That is gonna make a big, hot mess, whichever way you go. What kind or equipment are you gonna use to transport it? Maybe you could use one of those moon buggies they used at Chernobyl. Oh. wait, it instantly broke down from all the radiation. Where are you gonna get the human robots? When they finish building the biggest bomb in human history, will they get a certificate of accomplishment for their sacrifice? The 30,000 liquidators did. Half of those young buckaroos were dead by the the year 2000.
@@Steellmor a few of them ship nuclear material, but most of them are hardly certified to ship fruit, let alone radioactive stuff... Just to recall, wasn't there a ship last year that ran into a coral reef, spilling tons of fuel into the surrounding high-density ecosystem, because the captain wanted to get better cellphone connection from the shore? Now imagine even one of those idiots operating a nuclear ship...
@@Steellmor Shipping companies are known to cut costs on fuels and put any burnable stuff in the ovens and diesel can be wholly replaced with cheap drek, that is the sole reason they went back to diesel, because they're not burning diesel. They need to cut costs no matter what. If they had nuclear fuel rods to spare, they would sell it to the highest bidder. And the new Afghan leaders (you may have heard) recently got an injection of $2 billion cash and $80 billion in military equipment and they're looking to go nuclear. This isn't a difficult math problem at all, they will find each other and make a deal if given half a chance.
@@Yezpahr This is hilarious. First of all nuclear ships won't just happen by snap of a fingers - so many changes will get into place before it can happen. Nuclear ships also won't be available first to most dumbest and careless shipping companies - they wouldn't go out their way to get those,literally for cheaping-out reasons. The way how competition works - companies that would adopt policies required to operate nuclear vehicles will displace those who cheap out. Nuclear fuel doesn't have much to do with nuclear weapon - the amount of additional steps and time required to enrich fuel material to weapon-grade levels, makes acquisition of nuclear fuel as easiest part. And more importantly thorium based reactors pretty much solve all those problems.
@@midnight8341 And yet you can order uranium from amazon. Even though the guy who supposed to deliver it next to your door,can sniff it all just because he can. That's what delivery people do at the moment.
One added advantage to help recoup the initial cost of building a Nuclear powered ship would be when it is idle, loading or unloading at a dock, the ships Nuclear power system could be connected to the local power grid to help with the generation of electrical power for the port city. Granted there would have to be a MAJOR oversight group that would insure that the systems and system maintenance are performed as scheduled as in the Airline industry.
I like the idea, but may not be cost effective to waste fuel from a core custom built for power density on supplying the grid when, if the region was pro-nuclear, they could get much cheaper energy from a purpose-built nuclear commercial power plant. Maybe as an emergency supply that the shipyard could sell at likely hefty markup should the grid go down or be overloaded?
@@nsilversradd well, I don't think you can "waste" the fuel since the nature of nuclear reactors means that the reactors will still run even when the ship is at dock, so might as well supply it to the grid.
@@nsilversradd The ship is in port. The batteries are fully charged. Reactor is still making electricity but it has no where to go. NOW the ship is wasting fuel.
@@raydai3708 If the ship stays at dock for days or weeks, then it could be considered wasting nuclear fuel, but too short and the 'waste' is meaningless, because it takes much, much too long to throttle down most nuclear reactors. Fission products can continue to decay for weeks after a reactor has been brought to minimum power, and in some fuel cycles, those products significantly decaying also means the reactor will take a while to start up again.
Matt, they are not future, they are here. Russia has been operating a fleet of nuclear powered ice breakers for decades, primarily for commercial purposes. There is also an operational off shore nuclear power plant. It's called Lomonosov, it supplies heat and electricity to the city of Pevek.
Did someone mention Russia and nuclear? From nuclear powered light houses along the Northern sea route that got stripped of anything that could be sold to the known defects in the RBMK design that were hidden even from the engineers and operators who had to manage & control them the history is rather damning. Why did the Russian oligarchy not fuel the Lomonosov, that supplies heat and electricity to the city of Pevek, with LNG; could it be that LNG is a more marketable cash crop?
@@BernardLS You can study the experience accumated at Pevek to learn how to build and design off shore nuc power. Or you can write political rants. Your choice.
@@artirm1979 Is doing both not an option? Part of the study would be the economics of the situation. The staff at the Lomonosov will need to be good as they are a rather long way from any additional support and Pevek can get very isolated very quickly as was demonstrated last November.
@@BernardLS Yes, support is an issue for any SMR. A lot of them are meant for remote locations. That said, Lomonosov currently has two job openings for control and safety technicians . I wish I qualified)
@@artirm1979 So are you not qualified because you are still in training / education or are you working in a different discipline? I appreciate the need to isolate the 'first in service of type' SMR for safety reason but still hold the opinion that Pevek is a step to far; would not Dikson or Norilsk have satisfied the need for isolation but allowed better support in the case of a mishap? The services around the Yamal peninsular must be better than out at Chukotka Okrug?
The NS Savannah was the first nuclear powered merchant ship launched in 1959, and in service from 1962-1972. It was followed by the Otto Hahn, the Mutsu, and the only one still in service, the Sevmorput.
i can't believe he missed the savannah while researching for this episode. i still have my nat'l geo with a full article on the ship. also, though not a nuke powered ship, there was a us army ship (MH-1A, the Sturgis) that was a floating nuke power station and was used in the panama canal zone from 1968 to 1975.
Though, there was a picture of the Savannah in the report. Curious. I had an opportunity to see the Savannah as a child when it came to the SF Bay Area. That was a long time ago…
The key to making SMRs successful is to make them maintenance free with a 20+ year life span and mass produced on an assembly line. This will increase their reliability and lower their cost making them essentially "plug-and -play."
@@Babarudra As there is potential great value, it would likely happen. Or, better yet, propulsion units can be leased by a company that is underwritten by the government.
@@UncleKennysPlace It would be great, I don't dispute that. Some of the sticking points are that businesses can not be trusted to regulate themselves. If anyone was going to regulate it, it should be a combo of the IAEA, ENS and NRC. It would also mean some serious training for the techs that are onboard each vessel; which would have to be paid for from somewhere. All I'm getting at is that it would be a lot more than companies promising/guaranteeing that they'll do the right thing, and/or random governments giving the thumbs up, especially those that have shady records already when it comes to marine oversight.
I like that matt always give surface level knowledge but make it interesting and technical enough for common folks like me, great video and explanation
I agree with a lot of commenters about the unscrupulous operators of a lot of ships. Fleets of commercial nuclear power ships would need a degree of regulation that does not currently exist. Assuming that regulation could be put in place, Nuclear power for commercial shipping is a good idea. However, I expect upfront cost would discourage adopting this technology for shipping. But, if small reactors were to become well established for electricity grids, the cost would come down and this would indeed be a very attractive technology for shipping.
Regulation is why we currently do not have more nuclear energy. It will only increase costs and decrease adoption and hurt peoples lives. There is no need for it. Nuclear is already one of the safest forms of energy.
@@emperorpicard4901 My God, how naive are you? Do you really think nuclear power stations would have a great safety record if they were not heavily regulated? Would you really want ship registered in Liberia and Panama sailing through close to critical fishing areas or into harbours in major cities if those countries were also overseeing the safety standards? Like any form of energy nuclear energy can be very safe or very dangerous depending if the safety features are properly engineered and maintained. The problem with nuclear energy is it has a lot more potential to create a major disaster when things to wrong.
@@davesutherland1864 My God, how irrational are you? A great safety record is relative, compares to what? Compared to coal or fossil fuels, YES absolutely! "Would you really want ship registered in Liberia and Panama sailing through close to critical fishing areas or into harbours in major cities if those countries were also overseeing the safety standards" Who cares about the countries? I care about the shipping companies reputation. "Like any form of energy nuclear energy can be very safe or very dangerous depending if the safety features are properly engineered and maintained." Dude! That is true for EVERYTHING! "The problem with nuclear energy is it has a lot more potential to create a major disaster when things to wrong." That is true for a lot of other things as well, a lot no where near as regulated as nuclear, such as damns, some of which have killed many more people than nuclear. The point being is that you are ignoring all of the people that nuclear would save, which is in far greater numbers than people who get hurt by nuclear. Stop responding to fear and think rationally, use your head, not your heart.
I would have assumed the reactor of each ship would kind of be outsourced and owned by a different company. They would put their own people on the vessel for oversight and security. Like how GE monitors their jet engines remotely as they are running, these power companies would monitor all reactors on all ships. The ship owner would just think of it as black box.
@@emperorpicard4901 How irrational am I? Well as someone who studied nuclear engineering and once worked for a company developing nuclear reactor technology, I am about average. I think most people have no idea how safe OR dangerous nuclear technology is. Implemented correctly and it is hard to find its rival. Implement incorrectly and it is a nightmare. It is safe because of the regulation and no one I met seemed to have a problem with that. They all understood the risks, benefits and the reasons for the oversight required.
the other factor is that the much smaller size of reactors on ships you can scram the reactor and even if you don't cool it the decay heat wont exceed safe limits.
One huge thing that I'm not seeing here that all nuclear technology is highly regulated by the government, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This includes research reactors, breeder reactors, nuclear power plants, and the military nuclear fleet. Many of these are run by the "greedy corporations" some post are talking about. These laws are highly involved in the operation of the reactor. Having worked at a power plant, I can tell you that we have government regulatory officials that work onsite to oversee operations. I also happen to have been in the US Nuclear Navy. I can tell you that the NRC inspections were no joke. You can be confident that any marine fleet will not be able to cut corners and sail.
Well the NRC does not control shipping in Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malta, where 70% of all ships are registered, in fact the reason most ships are not registered with the US or other highly regulated countries is to avoid the stricter marine regulations imposed by their own countries. There are your "greedy corporations at work". They won't give a kazoo about your regulators, country or your safety rules and regulations. I honestly can't believe you think its not about money and all corporations will follow your laws.. They do now exactly the opposite to what your saying, they absolutely and knowingly fly flags of convenience so they can cut corners and sail however they want..
There are many more countries working on Th reactors than the ones you mentioned and all of them are small salt reactors in different designs. There were a lot of countries that built ships with reactors, but the problem was that very many have resistance to nuclear-powered ships and especially in their civilian ports, which posed more problems than it was worth. It was also another use that I saw quite a few years ago that the US fleet would look at using reactors to produce both aviation and ship fuel by extracting CO2 from seawater at a price that would make fuel cheaper than what we in Europe pay now for fuel and it could also help with the acidification of the oceans. Is a Canadian who has made a lot of good videos about Th / U reactors for over 10 years now, so if you have not looked at his, there is very good information there and he still follows conferences.
I really like your videos on nuclear energy because you always talk very objective and professionally about it and don't turn them into fear mongering or purely personal opinion based like most people do. Keep it up please.
Economic advantage: since fuel is a much smaller part of costs, especially day to day costs, a nuclear ship can run faster with little cost difference. Many cargo ships run at slower speeds to save on fuel. So nuclear ships can arrive quite a bit sooner than their diesel competitors. This makes just-in-time shipping more viable - there are many customers who would rather get many small shipments sooner at higher cost, this lets them get big shipments sooner at a potentially lower cost. Best of both worlds.
@@Outsideville At the moment, certainly a problem. But a quicker turnaround time also means using multiple smaller ports is more viable, as you can make more trips between them - even dropping off at multiple ports - in the time it might take a conventional fuel ship just to go to one port (just spitballing here). I’m also inclined to think that off-shore floating ports could be a useful development. Unload your super large container ships there, break down, and disperse to smaller ships to go into your smaller ports.
@@CMVBrielman I like the multiple ports idea, but not the sub-port idea. Adding another step in the chain from ship to truck just seems like a bad idea, especially having it out to sea. A significant amount of time is already spent on port operations; this would only serve to tie up more total ship-hours in port time. Nevermind the fact that the cargo itself has to deal with longer processing times.
One of the less obvious but very noteworthy- the insurance on cargo and vessel. I'ts not unusual for a container cargo vessel to have more insurance coverage on cargo than itself. And that insurance is brokered by the trip, not by the season or year like car insurance. Avery nuke "civilian" vessel has traveled under a national flag and papers that commit the issuer to restoration and damage through the national treasuries. Some ports still won't allow them in port.
I think I'd be more comfortable using nucleur power to create clean hydrogen/ammonia and using that to power ships. Seems like a better bet to ensure the plants receive regular maintenance and less chance of proliferation if they can be kept in one place and subject to one jurisdiction.
That involves considerable conversion losses. I imagine there are ways to regulate the safety of these reactors. For example you could have a ruling similar to emission control zones that only allows reactors that meet certain standards. Maybe it's possible to lock down the reactor to such an extent, that it becomes impossible to tamper with it and never needs maintenance.
In some countries (Portugal/Middle east) solar is as cheap as 10$/MWh, while nuclear cost estimates go from 80 to 250$/MWh. So economical it seems to make more sense to use solar in certain countries than nuclear.
Better than land based nuclear would be solar: Solar without batteries is around 20th of the price of nuclear, and you dont need 24/7 power for clean hydrogen/ammonia generation, you just generate when is sunny, in places like Australia. You budget your project around say 10 hours a day/300 days of production per year (like most factories)
Modern US sub cores are now designed to last life of the boat, not months. No more refueling, just decom the whole ship at EOL. The months underwater limit is based on food loadout. Dealing with the spent fuel is still a thing, of course.
Then again that decom is expensive, which should be calculated in the costs of operating the ship. Nuclear vessels cost curve is an U. High build costs, low operating costs, high decommissioning costs. One can't exactly send it to scrapper yard in China or india who is used to cutting diesel boats to pieces for decades. Only the nuclear navies have facilities for decommissioning nuclear vessels and even then it ain't ease or cheap even with right facilities. Given how many hulks of Russian nuclear vessels just sit in anchor up North waiting their turn to be defueled and decommissioned due to how hideously expensive and slow the process of decommissioning the _reactor_ is. Fuel you can take out easily. The problem is the whole reactor section made of now very well radiated and radioactive metal. Tons and tons of it. One again can't recycle it or just dump it. It is radioactive for decades, if not centuries. It has to be entombed or otherwise safely warehoused. Then again "safely" in Russia means tow it to desolate "reactor grave yard" beach up North. Not that USA solution is much better... it is called burying the reactor hulks on a disposal trench.... Thus one can't just say one goes through the initial high cost and then it's smooth sailing. Nope there is big fat expensive bill at the end also and _oh right end of life ship not worth anything commercially anymore for owner. Right people always treat those so responsibly and don't abandon them in bankruptcies or so on_ . One would have to escrow the money during operation and have the decom and decon plan ordered and in place before hand. Not to mention costs, it isn't fast process either. It takes years of waiting just for the "hot" reactor to core itself to calm down to be able to handle it at all. For all that time the ship must sit in anchor, guarded and maintained on mothball, while being worthless Thus should one expects shrewd shipping company to pay for it once the ship isn't worth anything anymore...... well I would like to sell the Eiffel Tower to them for scrap.
The problem with US naval reactors is that they apparently use weapons grade (or near it) fuel. The main reason for the lifetime reactor for the USN is that refueling a naval reactor is lengthy, very expensive and can only be done in one or two locations.
@@echomande4395 For this argument, you may as well just call it marine grade cuz the reason is power density, which would still apply to a cargo vessel, though not as much so as a sub.
Hi Matt! Always enjoy your work. Being a 20 year Navy vet with three tours on nuclear subs the idea of nuclear commercial shipping seems like a logical next step in the effort to make a more sustainable planetary energy model. The m-msr sounds particularly intriguing. I did want to clarify a point that has come up on your videos regarding the refueling cycle of nuclear submarines. Yes, they can operate for months submerged, but the limiting factor is food for the crew. They can usually go the same 20+ years before refueling as the carriers.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Also twenty years is a typical life expectancy for a commercial hull so about the time the reactor needs refuelling, due to the elements being 'poisoned' (?), it is time to drag it up a beach on the Indian sub continent and start beating the thing to death with hand tools. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
As a ship designer I'm for nuclear power, but only on larger vessels with long travel routes (naval, cargo, container) or extended periods (ice breakers, research vessels, etc.). Smaller vessels (offshore support, fishing vessels, windmill vessels, coastal cargo, etc.) which normally operates closer to port should seek other measures. We're already working on methanol solutions which produces hydrogen onboard for consumption, or vessels directly fueled by the use of ammonia. Most ships nowadays which we are designing are going for a "future fuel ready", meaning they reserve space or have plans at hand making it possible to do a conversion whenever the technology is ready. Most ship owners does not have the financial support to be the very first going for a "green" solution. So for the most part they'll choose solutions that are known and relatively easy to implement, which are batteries for peak shaving or scaled down solutions to serve hotel load for instance. Batteries enables better utilization of the main engines and reduces service needs and emissions. For other ship owners they are larger and could take the financial hit if a new solution does not work as intended. Most of these are still dependent upon governmental support or support from other means (EU Horizon funding, suppliers, etc.). All in all the entire maritime industry is working on this. I doubt nuclear power is the solution, but we're becoming greener every single day.
First let me say I’m not anti-nuclear power. But I’m all too aware of an industry where cutting of corners in ship safety, crew conditions, proper training, the disposal of waste and the use of non-sea worthy ships beyond their reasonable life-span currently runs rampant in international waters where literally ‘anything goes’. So, forgive me, but do we really want these ‘responsible’ firms to have nuclear fleets that could just sail into our harbors? That feels like giving little kids keys to the car to drive themselves to school when they engage in plenty of risk on their bikes.
That kind of reckless behavior is exactly whats killing the seas. So having nuclear reactors would force new regulations and training. Cutting corners on those would be practically suicide for said companies.
@@Andytlp "So having nuclear reactors would force new regulations and training." How about enforcing this first and then think about nuclear reactors on ships...
I haven't looked at it this way. Thanks for your perspective. The only thing I can imagine happening to mitigate this is government regulations.. which I could go and on about. Nuclear engineers have their work cut out for them
I’m a 20 year marine engineer trained in ICE propulsion plants. I’ve been saying that nuclear was the best way to go for a very long time. With the newer, safer reactors available now, this has become even more viable for marine transportation and shipping. The future is looking amazing.
So if a small boat load of rag tag Somali pirates can hijack a ship in the open ocean, even amongst war ships that are there to protect the said ships, how do you think it would go having even a slightly trained crew of hostiles take over a ship either at sea or in a port and blow up the ship in any harbour they are in or take the ship into. I imagine that they may be small reactors on the ships in comparison to say Japans, but the environmental damage they would do to that port and probably city and even country would be devastating. Not so sure it would look so great then..
@@Piesy001 These reactors are intrinsically safe so can’t melt down and are nearly tamper proof. Without a significant amount of ordinance wrapped around the reactor, I doubt much damage could be done. Being that they are an order of magnitude smaller than the standard fission reactor and use hardened fuel pellets, there isn’t much that could be done by your evil doers to make the mess you speak of.
10:23 MSRs _are_ more fuel-efficient, but let's keep in mind that this >95% fuel efficiency estimate is based on the total lifespan of the reactor. If fuel concentration drops below critical mass, the reactor won't function, even if there is still unused fuel in the reactor. So, by refueling and operating at critical mass for decades, the ratio of total burnt fuel to unused fuel in the core goes up. Solid fuel systems are limited by how well the coolant can handle the increase in heat transfer as the fuel pellets expand due to xenon, so the fuel gets thrown out more often. US Naval reactor fuel is customized to burn between 10-25% of their uranium (I'm stating that from memory, correct me if I'm wrong), and the 1% estimate in the video is from land-based reactors. Liquid fuel reactors like MSRs don't have this issue because xenon can leave the core, but that comes with its own challenges.
@@samuelgomola9097 right, but the gamma emissions from xenon's decay can be high enough to alert satellites designed to monitor nuclear weapons development.
@@mohdridzuanisa2373 it could be used for tracking, but when tracking nuclear weapons development, it’s best to minimize false positives. If that xenon could be stored in a leaded storage chamber, maybe that would help, but I don’t know how regulators would feel about that.
It looks like they have a lot of advantages over the current fossil fuel ships, but we also need to compare them to new hydrogen and BEV ships. I also wonder how will developing countries like Bangladesh deal with safely dismantling nuclear reactors at the end of the ships life.
A 100 MW reaction will have a weight or around 1000 tons (perhaps more) and they must be removed before the ship can be dismantled. The iron in the body is simply recycled and has low value.
"I also wonder how will developing countries like Bangladesh deal with safely dismantling nuclear reactors at the end of the ships life" not a big problem, you should not underestimate developing countries, India (A developing country) has plenty of reactors which have been running safely for decades, india slo makes 20 percent of its energy from nuclear, so they are experienced with it and they also have nuclear submarines too.
Citing Wikipedia on nuclear marine propulsion: "By 1990, there were more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly military) than there were generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide." When a solution has been perfectly well established from a engineering perspective three decades ago and well established in military craft; and today the implementation in commercial craft is still close to zero; there are probably very good reasons for this. All the technical benefits mentioned within this video were full known to everybody building ships for close to 50 years. The problems with nuclear fuels are not entirely restricted to preventing reactor failures. Just the handling of the fuel, either new or spent, while making sure that non-proliferation laws are ensured, present a massive investment into security. Military vehicles have these security concerns covered anyways due to their purpose, so there is very little differential cost to them. Shipping companies on the other hand want their ships crew to be as small as possible, and they want to spend as little time as possible sitting in harbour. Also they like their ships to be able to go to most harbours in the world, instead of constantly being told by their home-nation that they may not travel to annother non-allied nation, since there are currently some security concerns about bringing nuclear materials into those countries. In todays economic setup, telling any European or American shipping company that all of a sudden the have to avoid Chinese harbours for a few years will probably end in bancrupty pretty quickly.
I have been wondering for years why this hasn't been looked at more seriously. There is also tactical advantage to an all nuclear powered fleet. Not to mention companies are now looking at ways of using some of the nuclear waste to make low power batteries.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work.
@@BernardLS In terms of safety in the case of loss of cooling small marine reactors are much easier to deal with than large grid scale reactors, and molten salt based designs in particular are very easy to keep within spec just because they run really hot by design. Pretty much all MSR reactors are designed with total loss of active cooling in mind. There are for example some designs that incorporate passive safety cooling simply by allowing air to circulate around parts of the reactor through natural convection. I don't see an easy solution for the other safety risks though. Mass adoption nuclear power for shipping would require a completely new set of regulations to prevent ship operators from getting too stupid, and these would have to be well enforced too. The ships would basically have to be treated like miniature nuclear power plants, with all the responsibilities that comes with it. But due to public stigma against anything "nuclear" most regulators refuse to ever touch the issue.
We have already seen a famous use of SMRs in ships. It was when Greenpeace associates were making use of the two-reactor Russian icebreaker *Yamal*. They were vocal on the net about their exploration of the Arctic Ocean, but forgot to acknowledge this premeditated use of nuclear power. And by "forgot" I mean not one word ever. The story came out when one of them needed to be evacuated off the ice, and the Yamal made a special trip.
Oh my god, Greenpeace did a bubu...and what about all the problems nuclear plant owners hide from the public all the time, which have to bubble up through whistle blowers?
The enhanced regulatory oversight brought by nuclear propulsion will also bring order and decency to the murky and exploitative world of international shipping. Also, piracy will end because it will no longer be tolerated. Allow seizures of nuclear ships? As if. The roll up of pirates will be swift and BRUTAL.
Not a good idea thinking longterm and seeing recent leak history since 1950s to even FPL plants leaking since 90s, to this day in FL(infamous turkey point cooling pond leaking into everglades)
Due to profit motive, I imagine many doing companies would cut corners on the reactor and maintenance, greatly increasing the likely hood of a leak it accident unless very strick global standards and inspections are put in place
My guess is that the barriers to adoption won't be either technological or financial. Instead it'll be politics, particularly surrounding security and liability.
For the largest container ships (20,000+ TEU) that tends to have a more or less fixed route anyway, it should be possible. It shouldn't be that difficult to create guidelines and routines how to handle the nuclear powered ships in a select few ports. The life span of the ships itself ought to be long enough where the long refueling time ought to be justifiable, similar with the larger required crew. Special permission would be required to get them to be permitted to regularly cross the Suez, but perhaps easier access to the northern sea route might be a solution to that problem.
SMR's still have a lot prove on dry land, regarding cost and safety so ships add lots of complexity as some comments here talk about ship management and training is not up to nuclear standards. Reactors that are walk away safe, handle total power losses, and shipwrecks and can be insured against radiation releases would have potential. Thorium MSR may reduce waste duration to 300 years, but U-235 fueled MSR would still need 10,000 years to decay. Fuel security would be an issue too if ships are hijacked.
For shipping I'd say hydrogen or ammonia makes more sense. Solar energy in places like Suez in Egypt, the straights of Hormuz and Morocco could desalinise water and create the fuel close to shipping lanes with water as a bonus.
if the added cost of hydrogen, ammonia or other e-fuels like methanol is more than the added cost of going to nuclear, nuclear sounds like the better option.
There's a few floating SMRs you don't mention (that i would say are closer to deployment) but glad to see you are exploring the vast potentials of nuclear energy in decarbonising.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you think nuclear will decarbonise anything. That dog won't hunt. Nuclear uses more carbon than any other electrical energy source except coal and natural gas. It uses 18 times more carbon than renewables. What do you think they use to mine the ore and construct those massive reactors. It ain't pixie dust. If they ever drill a hole to hell to safely store their waste from hell, what will dig the holes? Carbon.
I think this will become a thing eventually- If it was ramped up and made routine it beats the other methods. Nuclears drawbacks are always about high set up costs, public fear etc.
Good video, as usual! A mistake in the video is calling nuclear power renewable. Its clean and relatively CO2-free over its life-cycle but not renewable since uranium is not renewed. It's an important difference vs wind and solar. Love nuclear power for its energy density though!
Given the scale of markets, it doesn't seem like nuclear shipping is the right place to jump start a nuclear renaissance. Lets get at least one MSR operational that is optimized for supplying power to the grid. If it happens that this reactor has appropriate characteristics for use in marine propulsion, that would be great. But safety and proliferation concerns for operating on the high seas should be higher than for land or near land stationary operation.
French and Americans have been doing it for decades - even civilian cargo boats have been designed - so if we decide to actually register ships in first world country it should be okay
well considering cargo ship are getting bigger it would make a perfect sense that ship using nuclear energy, it would save the fuel cost (in the long run at least). and also could carry more capacity
Great video again. I like that you always try to show the whole picture and not be biased. One point though, especially for the military applications: if there is any war, or these nuclear ships get damaged or sunk, probably the damage they cause is huge. Maybe commercial ships could be targetted by terrorists which runs on nuclear?
I am all for increased use of new modern nuclear power plants but I am very sceptical to the use of these in commercial shipping. As covered in this video there certainly are potential benefits but there are some issues that was not covered. 1. Risk of sinking / cost of salvage - On average about 150-160 cargo ships sink every year. If the use of commercial nuclear ships increase then it is only a question of time before a nuclear powered vessel sinks. Cargo vessels that sink are normally just left on the bottom of the sea but nuclear vessels / reactor will have to be recovered to prevent a radioactive release once the reactor corrodes. The reactor can be designed to minimise the risk of radioactive release but the recovery operation is insanely expensive depending on the size of the vessel (it will be large to justify nuclear power), water depth, how damaged the ship is, etc. When the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank in 2000, it cost 90 mill. GBP or about 215 million USD in today's currency just to salvage it. The Kursk was also a lot smaller than what a commercial nuclear cargo ship would be so the cost could be a lot higher. 2. Insurance and emergency response - Just imaging the insurance rate to cover the salvage operation as described above. In addition the current emergency response would not be equipped to deal with a radioactive release at sea. So far it has only been the military that has capabilities to manage this but what do you do if the vessel is registered in for instance Panama and the ship sink in international waters. The operator will not have the capabilities and resources to handle the situation, so which country will take responsibility and how will pay for it? 3. Crew skills and costs - The crew on cargo vessel are predominantly from countries with the lowest wages and just basic training. Operating a nuclear reactor takes a very different skill set both from the crew and vessel owner/operator. There is a huge learning curve to get ready to operate such reactors. 4. Regulatory regime - Governments and Class societies (companies that certify commercial ships such as DNV, Lloyds, ABS, etc.) do not have rules, standards and procedures in place to regulate such vessels so there is a long way to go before vessels could be constructed and approved ready for commercial operations . I do not think we will see commercial nuclear shipping anytime soon, if ever.
Once the MSR-Technology is matured and the legislation globally is in place (it's by far all countries that allow nuclear vessels in Port - irrespective of technology) it'll be a great idea. Maersk in the other hand have committed themselves to running on Co2 neutral power-to-x fuels before 2040.
I actually see this as an opportunity to mature the MSR technology. It's not ideal, but an accident at sea has much less environmental impact than on land. I hate to say repeat this old sang, but "delusion is the solution to pollution." Also, I'm not sure that the environmental impact would be worse than an oil leak from a diesel vessel.
Let's concentrate on building small nuclear on land. And stop closing down existing, safe, carbon-free plants like Diablo Canyon, you stupid Gavin 'Doofus' Newson!
Hi Really appreciate your channel I have thought for a number of years that nuclear is the way to go for heavy shipping but undecided for passenger craft maybe they would be best fuelled by hydrogen generated by nuclear or some other green technology Keep up the good work
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
@Lordkyzer2 Thank you. That is exactly the question I was going to ask. Granted that she couldn't haul "a lot" since she also had a few passenger cabins and associated accommodations but it was a pioneering vessel and, although not operating commercially these days, it still exists.
I mean it has worked very well for aircraft carriers, and nuclear subs. So its proven tech. That said, not sure its great to have many mobile nuclear powerplants that are pretty unprotected. But it does sound like a good idea on paper atleast
@@hc3657 Dirty bombs were a rather stupid post 9/11 American hysteria. Even if you could safely construct one (you can't), the contamination would only end up scaring people, not giving them radiation poisoning or cancer.
@@hc3657 From what you are saying I find it hard to believe that you have worked in the nuclear industry. I find it hard to believe because I have also been working in the industry. You are blind if you think the NRC is helping the American nuclear industry.
I'm a seafarer. I think not only the construction of the ship will drive the cost of merchant marine vessel but also the trainings of crew and probably additional number of crews needed to safely man these nuclear ships. Now vessels are operating only at minimum manning. I'm not from very big ships but I can attest that those 4000-30000 gross tonnage ships only have 17-21 crew barely enough for the safe manning.
Cost of construction and training is a matter of popularity and scale. Technically speaking there's no reason you can't have them. Maybe you need 4-5 extra crew members but you make up for it on fuel cost and environmental tax (if the governments recognize the benefit of lack of pollution).
While I have support for MSRs, before they go big on the high seas I would like to see quite a few hours on more accessible land units. Especially as staffing on ships would be lower and likely harder to debug in ships.
Consolidate and increase US nuclear on land, then use part of that to create alternative fuels for shipping. And nuclear on board a ship would seem to make it a bigger hijacking target.
But what are they going to do with the ship after they hijack it? Dump some radioactive water? Because to get to the fuel, in the core, would take days with lots of very powerful cutting torches. And that assumes the people cutting it open are just going to die from the exposer they get.
Great video. I had been wondering about this issue for a while but I have not seen many stories about these projects. Seems like an obvious solution considering the track record for the US Navy with nuclear propulsion.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
@@BernardLS Well you have certainly addressed a lot of issues, I will give you that. I don’t think shipping companies flying flags of convenience would be too involved in the reactor operation. Instead it would probably be system managed by companies like NuScale where they would work with the ship manufacturers to produce a compelling solution for shipping companies. The dangers of nuclear are greatly overblown. I can only think of one right off the top - the ship sinks in the ocean and takes the reactor with it to the bottom. In the 1950s France used to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Not a great thing to do but what we are doing now with fossil fuels is increasing the PH of the entire ocean with CO2 becoming carbolic acid. Eventually the whole ocean could become uninhabitable for marine life.
@@dlewis8405 France in the 1950's? Russia was doing it much more recently than that. 'Not great, but not terrible' (sorry but that quote is obligatory whenever nuclear & Russian get on the same page) IMHO nuclear energy except for air independent propulsion on naval submarines is not necessary, even aircraft carriers can be engineered to do without it.
Hello Matt It Is in my umble opinione that decarbonising the most polluting Sectors First by focusing mostly on them Will produce the most effect in stopping global warming
Letting the 20 biggest cargo ships run on nuclear would make a huge difference in carbon emissions. It's a focused 'quick' win in a situation where there aren't good alternatives available.
I don't think that would have the impact you think it would. There are nearly 10k container ships with an average age of 10.6 years according to wikipedia. The largest ships are all pretty close in size, so there are not few super big ones that would make your idea viable. This all assuming wikipedia is correct. It probably makes more sense to use reactors to make carbon neutral fuels and power more existing ships.
@@siemdecleyn3198 a better idea would be just to use a few nuclear reactors to make carbon fuels which can then be used in the engines that already exist.
@@mikenyc1501 sounds like you would miss the advantages of mass production of nuclear reactors, costs for of production and transport of fuels, there would be a lot of wasted energy (electricity>hydrogen>useful fuel>transport>burning>mechanical energy) and the continued pollution of combustion engines.
While I support nuclear reactors, I really am worried about using nuclear propulsion in army. What if such ship gets into a battle and is destroyed by a couple of missiles or torpedoes? The nuclear fuel could leak into the oceans...
Nuclear submarines have sunk before in the past for various reasons (usually technical malfunctions). Those wrecks are continuously monitored by multiple countries and so far they haven't detected any leaks, and some of those wrecks have been down there for decades.
Many of the vehicles that are powered by nuclear reactors are already going to have nuclear weapons so that is the least of our concerns when it comes to nuclear.
@@eugeniustheodidactus8890 Your point being...? If something isn't perfect that doesn't mean we have to make it even worse. Oh and Fukushima did not dump the water yet. They are storing everything at least til the summer.
Nuclear fuel is not a blob of ever-molten posionous lava that is going to chase every living thing down before summoming the antichrist. Seawater is already saturated naturally in dissolved uranium, solid fuel its not going to dissolve for centuries. Besides the bars are coated in zircalloy (they are supposed to.work at high temperature submerged in water to begin with). For molten fuels I don't know, but people underestimate the size of the ocean, a few tons of the most dangerous waste dissolved into sea water would be.... Undetectable anyway. The same way we could be having a Chernobyl per year and global exposition to radiation is not going to be significanly increased over background (the atmosphere is big) we could be dumping all our waste into the oceans every year and properly dispersed would not affect the ecosystem. Disclaimer: i'm not saying it would be a good idea, just to expose the scales we are talking about, regarding the miniscule use of nuclear we use as a civilitzation versus the fantasy apocalyptic scenarios
Another potential plus would be that while they're in port, they could provide power to the local power grid, offsetting power produced by coal, gas, and oil powered power plants.
I work in this industry as an Merchant Marine engineer. I have zero trust in the companies to provide the necessary maintenance support to make this safe. I would leave the industry if they tried to make this change. They’re already doing everything they can to eliminate employment of mariners from first world countries. Try to imagine a world full of nuclear powered ships operated by third world crews. Then add on the ships being owned by companies that are in and out of bankruptcy on a regular basis. That’s the reality of what this would become.
There are certain reactors that do not require any maintenance whatsoever. You seal them and they work for some decades until you need to replenish the fuel. I think those could work. Maintenance can be done at the time of refueling.
The IAEA and regulators from the major nuclear nations would have to place strict safety licensing requirements for these ships. That would filter all those companies that wish to cut corners.
@@nuclearmex630 Hahahahahahahah! You said IAEA and regulators from the major nuclear nations and strict safety licensing requirements in the same sentence. I don't care what anyone says, that's funny!.
Amazing content as always, but I wonder if to really drive home the difference between the mMSR and normal reactor, if when showing the percentage, instead of starting from zero, you started at 95% and then wound it down to 1%, just to visualize the difference more directly?
As an added bonus, excess power not used by the ship could desalinate water, especially while loading/unloading. Heard California running low on that liquid gold. Just a thought.
(edited to correct my sentence formation...👍) Okay... background... I'm a former Reactor Operator from the USN...SSBN 732, USS Alaska...I also have a BSEE, and worked in engineering at the largest nuke-energy plant in the US...Palo Verde...(just west of Phoenix). Glad you mentioned fuel density. Civilian power plants operate with about 3%...thus requiring refueling every 18 months or so. This 3% fuel is totally safe...you can hold the pellets in your hand. On the other hand....Navy nuclear power design requires decades between refueling...thus the fuel density must be wayyy higher... it's literally weapons-grade. So there's the question...can you safely run a civilian ship with highly enriched fuel? Not like pirates or terrorists could figure a way to get at it...but countries like Iran and N. Korea definitely would. Great thought experiment...but in my opinion... gonna be "rough seas" before this ever happens. (See...i made a pun...😊) Cheers! JerBear Charlotte USA Also...sodium explodes when in contact with water. Trying to understand how safe it would be to put that kind of reactor in the middle of the ocean...🤔
Jerry, first: thank you for your service man. Really. I am a civ, but as a contractor or employee or one, worked on JBER a little, Shemea a lot more than I wanted, (rebuilding hangers for the F-117) and Eielson Air Force Base also rebuilding a hanger but for the F-35's stationed there. It is amazing to me, with the little experience I have had, that anything gets done at all in the military. It just takes so long and is sooooo expensive. But it does get done, and what you guys do and did with what y'all (and us civvies) built over the years is really amazing, and man, I appreciate it. Like, those hangers!!! They have to be built really tough, and man they were back in the early and mid '40's. Solid oak beams, planks, and girts. Like pounding a nail in concrete. You had to pre-drill to put a #40 galvanized spike into that stuff, and it was still freaking hard. Anyway, Cheers! Lets all make America great again, OK?
I've worked for many years in the engineroom of a nuclear powered vessel and I can tell you that there's no way this is going to happen. The industry won't pay what it will cost to build, maintain and safely operate a fleet of nuclear powered cargo ships. The very idea is laughable. Imagine a Monrovia flagged super-max container ship, crewed by (pick your average low paid, poorly trained East-Asian island nation warm bodies), then add the complexities inherent in a nuclear powered ship and you have a recipe for disaster. Think Chernobyl, coming to a port near you. I don't think so. Great idea, but, like fusion power, it won't happen (unless you count the sun). Cheers, D.
Former MMN2 (USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659) who thought the same, and wrote as such. Thank you for your service. When I was in, a) nuke school had a 40%, while b) we were 50% billeted. If the US Navy has a hard time recruiting, training and retaining talent, just imagine how the merchant marine would fair.
@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt Takes a fellow nuc to know why content like this is pie in the sky. Lots of us out there watching this, shaking our heads no and smiling as the memories come flooding back. I was SSN 583 - USS Sargo, fifth nuclear submarine in the world. Long time ago but the drill is still the same. Not going to happen in a profit oriented world. Smooth sailing, friend. Cheers, D.
@@fodank To see just how much the drill has remained the same, have a look at Destin's chronicles of his experience aboard USS Toledo over at the SmarterEveryday channel. Talk about memories...
Not only that. But think of the terrorist targets that would be created by having multiple reactors in each port? Not for the risk of nuclear explosion, but for the 'dirty' bomb effects if a terrorist either hijacked one of these vessels or simply used explosives on the side near the reactor causing enough damage to contaminate an entire harbour and shut down a port and surrounding areas. On a naval vessel the ship is generally protected by guns against terrorism (although the USS Cole put that to rest). But merchant vessels will be vulnerable to say the least.
@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt Watched a few of them, but for all the enthusiasm he had, I was reminded of all the riders we had on our boat at various times, each punching their ticket for sub pay and taking up space while we slogged away pushing the boat around. Good for Destin, but it was been there, done that for me. He'll never know the really good stories... Cheers, D.
Don't know if this is a good idea, but dismissing it outright sounds stupid. If the most important thing is lowering our carbon footprint then nuclear is a good short-term solution until we have cost-effective ways to store green energy. Perhaps using nuclear together with solar and wind would make a good combination for a low-carbon energy source
First get the thorium reactors to work on shore then think about using them at ‘off shore sites’ and finally on board ships; a clear hierarchy of implementation where the body of experience is followed by devolution of regulation. The most significant indicator is that military use took a step away from SMR and fleet support vessels were never provided with the small reactors that could and would have been available. The use by submarines is mainly determined by the requirement for air independent energy provision and the fleet carrier use by the need for energy concentration and even with this requirement the latest British carriers are non-nuclear.
I'm seeing post about the workers on the ships. I don't think people are giving these workers enough credit. The would bet that the engine crew is full of highly skilled craftsmen and craftswomen that could handle the operation of a nuclear reactor. Plus these newer MSRs are designed to be less operations intensive than a conventional designs. The US Navy entrust 19 and 20 year olds to operate and maintain there nuclear fleet and they've never had a accident. We have to remember that sea travel can dangerous and there is no calling for help. You need a highly skilled and capable crew to handle everything that comes up. A dead in the water ship is a ship in a lot of danger regardless of a type of propulsion used.
I would be slightly concerned about these profit-seeking companies managing nuclear vessels. Them rushing to deliver things and cutting corners to maximize profits.
FPL power monopoly has a two leaking power plants causing the cooling ponds to release tainted radiated saltwater into our water of atlantic.. turkey point in miami is infact leaking, very under reported in nytimes and miaminewtimes
@@nameless1016 LOL when it comes to our own back yard people raise a big fuss about it even though it is technically safer operating on the ground than in a ship.
@@dertythegrower I hate when these companies get away with things. Most likely the company has some politician in their pocket thanks to good old lobbying.
This is a complete non-starter given the appalling way most shipping companies operate out of dodgy locations to reduce liability, regularly skip maintenance and operate insurance scams... Ammonia as a future fuel makes much more sense. Also since 40% of ALL shipping is currently moving fossil fuels, moving to renewables would greatly reduce the amount of shipping whatever its propulsion and therefore potential pollution.
Simon, do you have any evidence to believe that shipping companies skip maintenace to save costs when it's just that sort of action that reduces reliability which is a huge cost by itself. Shipping companies have to run their ships reliably to ensure future trade, any company with a history of breakdowns won't be in business long.
@@iareid8255 Thus report highlights various issues including the lax regulations from many countries with lack of inspections at a lot of ports across the world as well as the fact that many vessels “go East” where the standards are even worse. Also what happens when’s nuclear ship sinks or worse runs aground and gets smashed to bits all over the coast?
I do think this is a great idea. Considering we've been doing this sort of thing since the 1960s (I didnt know it went that far back till this video) with Russia running such cargo ships now, it's clearly a viable option. I knew about the South Korean project but I didn't know about the UK one, so thanks for that. But yes, it looks like the by 2050, hopefully much earlier, the world's shipping fleet will be mostly based on the flexible green methanol fuels we're seeing with Maersk, with and without wind assist, while there is a substantial minority of bigger and faster nuclear powered ships as well. I'm glad we've got practical and relatively economic carbon neutral solutions for our maritime industries.
I’m assuming the steam is cooled using the largest available heat sink, the ocean. If this was mass adopted, couldn’t thousands of ships dumping excess heat into the water cause warming as well?
The energy level of the greenhouse effect versus like human power consumption is orders of magnitude difference. Think humanity uses 1% of daily solar output per year.
Fun nuclear fact: On may 20th 1964 the NS Savannah, the first nuclear powered merchant vessel, was making her way to the Port of Baltimore, and in the process passed the USCGC White Pine as the crew was loading a SNAP-7B Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator on to Baltimore Harbor Lighthouse, making it the first atomic powered lighthouse. You can see the NS Savannah in the background of this pic: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Harbor_Light#/media/File%3ABaltimoreLight.jpg
im all for nuclear power - it just makes sense ON STABLE LAND. But shipping is just a bit too risky - these things sink frequently enough that makes it reasonably infeasible
I think nuclear power on ships are a very good idea. Yes, there are challenges in regulation and ship management, but those are social issues, far easier to overcome than the hard physical issues related to using ammonia or hydrogen fuels. Nationalising shipping or implementing robust regulation is far easier than overcoming the high conversion losses involved in creating hydrogen and related fuels.
'Nationalising shipping or implementing robust regulation' good luck selling either of those to the libertarians, they will call you lots of bad things even though sensible it is the only way to go.
At the end of the day, I think Nuclear power will be a stepping stone more than anything else. We need to cut emissions immediately, and current nuclear power can help us do that…but eventually we’re going to be so flush with renewable energy that I don’t think it will be much of an issue anymore. We’ll just be using all the excess energy to make hydrogen fuel for the ships.
Agree with it is a stepping stone. But not to renewable. . . rather, to nuclear fusion. Renewable is too unreliable, too hard to scale, too geographically dependent, and too expensive. Renewable installations require installed capacity of many multiples of energy needs because of the extended non producing times. Furthermore, the whole concept of "renewable can provide our current needs. . . " is fatally flawed. The thinking instead needs to be "how do we provide an order of magnitude more power at an order of magnitude less money". In the end, virtually everything is energy limited and massively expanding energy production will change the world. Just imagine a nuclear fusion reactor running a desalinization plant. It could provide Great Lakes volumes of clean fresh water.
@@condal32 yea I agree. We’re ultimately going to have to cut down drastically on what gets shipped and then ensure that the remainder gets shipped in a responsible manner. At the end of the day though, maritime shipping is one of the most emissions efficient way to move fruit and vegetables around so we won’t be reducing it all the way to 0.
@@apostolakisl possibly, but I can’t shake the feeling that we don’t actually know how far away nuclear fusion is. I have yet to hear about it successfully powering anything for a day or even a week. Maybe it’ll be hear in 10 years and then we just rapidly build out! But we need to hedge our bets that it might not be ready for another 200 years in which case we need something else to limp along until then. Nuclear provides a good backbone for this, but I think renewables will play a large role as well.
Nuclear power makes sense for warships since they can defend themselves against an attacker looking to wreak havoc by sabotaging the reactor. Civilian vessels are not equipped to repel a determined attacker and I can imagine the resultant damages a Somali pirate scenario could cause.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
High-value Ships ran by the army of rich governments (US, UK, France, etc) are well maintained and this, imo, is part of the reason why there was no issues with them yet. Put them in the hands of potentially-ill-managed private operations and we are bound to have a few catastrophic failures... At one point, one of those company will be strapped for cash and they will try to do more with less, pushing those "indestructible engines" beyond what they should do... it's bound to happen. I'm not against Nuclear energy, but history shows us that they need proper design and maintenance and they also require that the maintainers be independant enough to raise issues when they happen and respected enough to be heard by the authorities, else you get another Chernobyl.
While I love the idea, implementing this in a extremely cost competitive industry (eg cost cutting safety) for such a minor reduction in CO2 doesn't seem worth it. I would rather see MSR tech used for domestic power production where it can have a greater impact.
@@2MeterLP risk. For centralized stations you can have a more dedicated staff while providing power for areas where the general impact would be much greater. In a shipping industry you have a fight for low rates and a relatively high turnover rate, thus mandating more training. While msr's are safer, it doesn't mean they are without fault. If one fails on land, the impact is much smaller, while in a ship that gets beaten by storms and potential for introduction into the ocean the effect is much greater in size of area
@@LG123ABC That considers exactly one failure mode. MSRs introduce a bunch more failure modes that are extremely incompatible with marine environments.
There is presently a shortage of commercial airline pilots. To become a commercial airline pilot, it takes two years to gain the required 1,500 hours flight time. Maybe we need to stop building airplanes?
Under different circumstances, nuclear powered ships would have been a logical solution 30 years ago. Currently, we're only a few years away from other more promising technologies taking over.
Facts.. the dangers are not worth it until vessels and entire damage control can be proven by the liars of nuclear sales(radiation in my teeth from fl power plants leaking still)
What about safety from hijacks? If the “Somali pirates” can easily board and take over tankers, a bit more prep and planning should mean taking over these nuke ships could be done quickly. Then the fear becomes nuclear knowledge theft or planned detonation into a new destination.
or just dirty bombing it. One might not get nuclear criticality explosion out of it, but breach the reactor with conventinal explosives and some more for spreading the internals of the reactor and well one has a dirty bomb. Ofcourse one can make "oil slick" bomb out of a tanker or so on, but still just because it can't go nuclear kaboom doesn't mean it is risk free. The fuel in itself even without critical mass of it is *nasty poisonous heavy metals laden latently radiactive* material. So as said it's one thing to sail around on diesel/bunker fuel ship. Another to sail past nation with nuclear reactor and not have that state decide "we want to take a peeksie on that tech, surprise coast guard inspection and detainment". Not to mention as said pirates/hijackers deciding..... they will probably pay pretty penny to get their _nuclear_ container ship back. Navy nuclear vessels have benefit of having ahemmm it's own security detail along for the cruise.
I'm really hoping someone will drag fusion across the finish line in my life but we must plan as if it's not in the cards and this would make good economic sense. It might be easier to master fusion than to convince people to give newer fission designs a fair shake
I like the idea of large city powering reactor ships off coast that are operated by utility companies. I'm not sure about standard shipping, have you seen what ship breaking yards are like? Off shore should be used on the west coast of the America's to desalinate sea water, pump it up to the mountains and blow it out of snow guns to create the largest high albedo foot print in the winter. Keep things cool by reflecting it back to space.
Leaking plant Turkey Point.. fukishima.. US also has sunken lost nuclear devices in the arctic we still havent recovered kid... no, bad idea that will be bad longterm forever... again forever, you cant clean it.. its in my teeth, turkey point plant wastewater in Miami waters now too 🤔
@@dertythegrower That is a very simplistic view of a complex issue. Modern reactors are designed in ways to prevent accidents, and self scram and cool with power loss.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather disruption thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly, and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non-power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? Would there have been sufficient heat energy contained in the power system to facilitate a hydrothermal explosion? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ off of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. It might also be worth bearing in mind that part of the TMI near miss was the fault of the US navy trained operators focusing on not letting the primary cooling system 'go solid'; due to their training overwhelming their education and the particularity of the situation. The actions of the captain of the 'Costa Concordia', Francesco Schettini, may also be relevant; the consequences of his actions, whether due to ineptitude, an isolated act of incompetence or driven by a corrupt corporate culture, illustrates well one of the dangers of releasing nuclear energy into commercial shipping. As a second point if you fit 'walk away safe' reactors on ships you will need duplicate drive trains as there are seldom salvage tugs around when you really, really need one. A nuclear ‘dead ship’ drifting around NUC (not under command) would be a disaster waiting to happen and duplicate systems increase expense. Land based nuclear power plants have a few issues but are immobile, stable and usually well regulated. Reactors on ships by their very nature are able to move between regulators, bump into each other and roll over. Regulation of ships by both / either flag state or port state has problems and adding any nuclear regulatory obligations on to those already overstretched facilities would be very taxing for all involved. This is not about 'can it be safe' it is all about 'will it be safe'. Furthermore, while merchant ships may be 'taken up from trade', as the RN would say, or may be captured or impressed by non-state quasi military entities by way of piracy, cargo ships are not military vessels. They therefore do not have the same inherent level of self-protection and internal discipline. Why not use nukes on merchant ships? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
Would you be interested in talking about a possible technology opportunity. Like pressure plates on sidewalks in busy citys in busy places like the las vages strip or California beaches well the sidewalks that go up to the beach. Thoughts.
@@dertythegrower kinda i was thinking it would sink 1 to 2 inches when you step then when you get off it goes back up. Mybe not like a seesaw but does sound fun to walk on.
@@thesilentone4024 that sounds like a nightmare for anyone with imperfect balance tbh. 1mm at most would probably be tolerable. Loose paving moving 2-5mm already trips up many people, such as causing older ladies to break their ankle.
@@kaitlyn__L ah yes I forgot the old and imperfect walking some people got lol. Ya 1 to 2 mm should work. For some reason I was thinking if kids walked on it I can see them jump to see it drop fast but ya you got a point save the old peoples ankles and mybe pregnant ladies too lol 😆.
An idea that just came to my mind: Floating nuclear reactors which produce hydrogen fuel which the ships use to operate. Would be maybe safer than if every ship has its own reactor.
Way too many extra expenses. The mantainence would be expensive, cost of electrolysers and also the loss of energy because electrolysers aren't 100% efficient.
There's a lot of buts there. First, you will need to multiply the number of reactors in order to compensate for the energy losses. Second, the energy consumption will be even bigger because of the off-track in order to refuel. Plus all the extra carriers in order to bring the hydrogen to the coast because sea platforms may not be possible for everybody. But yeah, it may be. But knowing overall that fission is not renewable, I would avoid all the energy losses due to use the middle man of hydrogen. But, it will be totally different if somehow we can convert CO2 into fuel using nuclear energy + water. The oceans are absorbing lots of CO2. It may be interesting to extract CO2 from the oceans, allowing them to absorb even more, and then use the resulting fuel as fuel as we know it. Then, CO2 capture systems would make the fuel even cheaper, helping to reduce the overall CO2 in the atmosphere. Hydrocarbon fuels may be a very good idea.
@@kushalvora7682 Could deffinatly be, yes maintenance on sea is allways on the costly side. I didnt think about the risks eather. Was just a thought i would like to hear others opinion on.
@@BlueFrenzy Combined with CO2 capture systems it might make sence. But thinking about it it may make more sence to just bild it on land and maybe just use renewables. But fun to think about it never the less
Casual Navigation did a video on the logistics of the Savanna and other civilian nuclear powered ships. One of the main reasons they were dropped was simply due to the fact many ports denied them harbor, often officials had to fly months, even years in advance to get pre-approved for dock.
![🔴 [TRỰC TIẾP] Tứ Xuyên (Trung Quốc) VS U20 Thái Lan | Cúp VTV9 - Bình Điền 2024 | JET STUDIO](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bguJ41PcW0c/mqdefault.jpg)
Is nuclear energy the answer to renewable shipping? Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: www.wren.co/start/undecided The first 100 people who sign up will have 10 extra trees planted in their name!
If you liked this video, check out Exploring Why This Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Matters: th-cam.com/video/-KEwkWjADEA/w-d-xo.html
I know nuclear isnt as safe as claimed.. example is in Miami power plant turkey point, shut down recently due to poor function, also of its MAJOR leaking into atlantic and local FL water supply caused by pourous limestone rock... not good, they found radiation from plants in the local community of miami and such... under reported in nytimes and Miami Herald 2021
We have subpar radiation leaking all over... creating safer types may work but pointless when plants like Turkey Point are quite literally leaking into National Park everglades(topic of funding in news right now also).. wake up
Yes it is. It is as clean and safe as it can get while allowing an insanely long operation time before refueling is needed. I really look forward to seeing more and more nuclear powered ships coming into operation in the future.
Tritium leaks are concerning but these are old systems built in the 70's from designs in the 60's. No comparison. Tritium has a short half life anyway.
Wren is the easy way to show all your friends and family your virtues!
I'm pretty pro-nuclear but there are a number of factors that leave me skeptical about it's safety in shipping applications; properly trained reactor techs and maintenance isn't cheap, and even if those costs are overshadowed by long term savings, shipping companies tend to be big on cutting corners to save money and cheaping out everywhere they can even when it's both ill advised and, at times, explicitly illegal.
There's also the hazards that ships face, from breaking up in a storm at sea to accidents like collisions in harbours, plenty of ships are lost each year. The dangers of radiation are overblown, but that is a _lot_ of potential nuclear accidents every year.
You'd basically need apocalypse-proof idiot-proof self-contained zero-maintenance reactors that can survive decades under the unsupervised mercies of all the world's under-trained lowest-possible-wage mariners, and the ship they're in being dashed against the rocks and scattered, along with strict regulations to ensure that reactor-equipped ships have the reactor properly removed and decommissioned instead of being sold to a country where with lax laws for ship breaking.
It's not as bad an idea as fission-powered cars, but it's got a lot of obstacles to overcome and half of them are rooted in human greed.
We could start by using a nuclear -powered US Merchant Marine cargo ship. The vessel would be staffed by US Navy nuclear personnel to handle the reactor, and the cargo ship would only go from naval bases in Hawaii and California. The personnel would bring experience to the ship, while going to/from Naval bass would ensure that nuclear support systems are present on both ends of the trip in case of a problem. This would reduce two potential problems in the test, and from there we would have the nuclear cargo ship gathering data with every transit back and forth.
Have that cargo ship operating for about a decade to get enough data, for incidents, insurance, work-hours needed, maintenance, costs, etc. That will give us a better source of data about nuclear cargo ships, vs using land-based nuclear reactors to produce fuels for ICE-engined cargo ships.
And thats what itll take cause seas and earth atmosphere probably only has 100 years of hospitable conditions left. Its probably going to be hell in 30 years already the last 50 will be last ones to survive the wars, dying out slowly. Gotta choose reduced profits or dead earth. Profits always win so were screwed.
Molten salt reactors can be designed to be "walk away safe" because of the way they function. The fuel is in liquid form and can't melt down like solid fuel reactors can.
@@LG123ABC still doesn't help leakage if the reactor itself is torn to pieces by storms, collisions, and other accidents ships regularly go through though. The concern here was never how safe the operation of the reactor is, but how safe it is to use a reactor in such an unstable application scenario.
@@raydai3708 i somehow feel an oilspill from a shipwreck would be more environmentally catastrophic than a nuclear powered ship going down
I have actually worked inside a traditional nuclear power plant. I am pretty comfortable with the idea of more nuclear power plants even if they are mobile like in cargo ships. Good topic.
Nuclear ships are great opportunities for global terrorisms.
Terrorists will have plenty of opportunities to steal nuclear materials from a nuclear powered ships to create bombs for both global and domestic terrorist activities. The shipping companies will prioritizes making profits and minimize the cost from keeping the nuclear matrials falling into the wrong hand.
Why are you comfortable with the idea of helping generate 20-30 tons of high-level radioactive waste and 50-70 tons of low and intermediate level per year and millions of tons of radioactive tailings to get your fuel? Do you think that is safe? Do you know that nuclear energy is the most expensive form of energy on the market and others will have to pay for waste disposal and health and environmental effects of nuclear reactors? Are you comfortable with all that because that is how you make a living or do you think it is safe and fair? Are there any jobs that you would not do for moral reasons? Are these topics you are willing to discuss or do you want to avoid them because you don't like the answers?
@@jackfanning7952 citation needed. The entire US spent fuel would fit in a football field about 10ft deep. This is also 10-20 times less materials needed than wind and solar to make the same power, before storage and distribution is factored in.
@@orkin2525 I wish nukies would quit believing the NEA lies. Especially ones as asinine as this one. Let me deal with the "10-20 times less material needed than wind and solar" lie first, then the really fun one about the nuke football field. It takes 1 million tons of rich 0.1% uranium ore to generate 7 tons of U-235, which must be enriched to operate a light-water reactor.The tailings still contain most of the radioactivity left in open piles. The reactor uses about 10 tons of enriched U-235 per 12-18 month fuel cycle. We won't quibble over how many 100,000s of tons of concrete and steel are needed to build a reactor or canisters to put them in after they do their dirty work..
Now the football nuclear bomb. What happens when you stack fissionable isotopes together? Criticality produces a self-sustaining fission reaction. Can you spell B-O-M-B? How much high-level nuclear waste do U.S. commercial nuclear reactors produce each year -2000 tons. There are 86,000 tons of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors in overloaded open pools and casks within 100 miles of every major city in the US. (gao.gov/products/gao-21-603).That is about 35% of the amount of high-level waste at DOE facilities from the Defense (Offense) Department. In Europe, they require hardened structures for this, but not in the U.S. 3.6 million lbs. of spent fuel is stored in 5/8" thick welded canisters at San Onofre, 18" above the water table, 108 feet from the shore at what used to be named "Earthquake Bay"on top of 2 earthquake faults, snuggled right in between 14 million people in LA and San Diego.There is 100 times more cesium-137 in those canisters than was released at Chernobyl. What could possible go wrong? The worldwide standard for canisters is 10-18" thick canisters with bolted, not welded lids. San Onofre has the cheapest casks that the captured NRC regulators will allow. Salt water will corrode them in 10 years. They have been there 18 years. They dropped one a few years ago. Oopsie daisy. Glad it didn't blow Commiefornica off the map.
Tell me: are you going to stack this waste from hell on the football field inside the canisters or just dump the fuel assemblies on top of God's green Earth. That is gonna make a big, hot mess, whichever way you go. What kind or equipment are you gonna use to transport it? Maybe you could use one of those moon buggies they used at Chernobyl. Oh. wait, it instantly broke down from all the radiation. Where are you gonna get the human robots? When they finish building the biggest bomb in human history, will they get a certificate of accomplishment for their sacrifice? The 30,000 liquidators did. Half of those young buckaroos were dead by the the year 2000.
@@jackfanning7952 if only you actually understood half of that.
In theory I like the idea, but considering how shipping companies run their operations currently I absolutely do not trust them with nuclear material.
But they ship nuclear materials all the time.
@@Steellmor a few of them ship nuclear material, but most of them are hardly certified to ship fruit, let alone radioactive stuff... Just to recall, wasn't there a ship last year that ran into a coral reef, spilling tons of fuel into the surrounding high-density ecosystem, because the captain wanted to get better cellphone connection from the shore?
Now imagine even one of those idiots operating a nuclear ship...
@@Steellmor Shipping companies are known to cut costs on fuels and put any burnable stuff in the ovens and diesel can be wholly replaced with cheap drek, that is the sole reason they went back to diesel, because they're not burning diesel. They need to cut costs no matter what.
If they had nuclear fuel rods to spare, they would sell it to the highest bidder. And the new Afghan leaders (you may have heard) recently got an injection of $2 billion cash and $80 billion in military equipment and they're looking to go nuclear. This isn't a difficult math problem at all, they will find each other and make a deal if given half a chance.
@@Yezpahr This is hilarious. First of all nuclear ships won't just happen by snap of a fingers - so many changes will get into place before it can happen. Nuclear ships also won't be available first to most dumbest and careless shipping companies - they wouldn't go out their way to get those,literally for cheaping-out reasons. The way how competition works - companies that would adopt policies required to operate nuclear vehicles will displace those who cheap out. Nuclear fuel doesn't have much to do with nuclear weapon - the amount of additional steps and time required to enrich fuel material to weapon-grade levels, makes acquisition of nuclear fuel as easiest part.
And more importantly thorium based reactors pretty much solve all those problems.
@@midnight8341 And yet you can order uranium from amazon. Even though the guy who supposed to deliver it next to your door,can sniff it all just because he can. That's what delivery people do at the moment.
One added advantage to help recoup the initial cost of building a Nuclear powered ship would be when it is idle, loading or unloading at a dock, the ships Nuclear power system could be connected to the local power grid to help with the generation of electrical power for the port city. Granted there would have to be a MAJOR oversight group that would insure that the systems and system maintenance are performed as scheduled as in the Airline industry.
That could also be used as a way to off set the cost by selling that power to port cities while idle.
I like the idea, but may not be cost effective to waste fuel from a core custom built for power density on supplying the grid when, if the region was pro-nuclear, they could get much cheaper energy from a purpose-built nuclear commercial power plant. Maybe as an emergency supply that the shipyard could sell at likely hefty markup should the grid go down or be overloaded?
@@nsilversradd well, I don't think you can "waste" the fuel since the nature of nuclear reactors means that the reactors will still run even when the ship is at dock, so might as well supply it to the grid.
@@nsilversradd The ship is in port. The batteries are fully charged. Reactor is still making electricity but it has no where to go. NOW the ship is wasting fuel.
@@raydai3708 If the ship stays at dock for days or weeks, then it could be considered wasting nuclear fuel, but too short and the 'waste' is meaningless, because it takes much, much too long to throttle down most nuclear reactors. Fission products can continue to decay for weeks after a reactor has been brought to minimum power, and in some fuel cycles, those products significantly decaying also means the reactor will take a while to start up again.
Matt, they are not future, they are here. Russia has been operating a fleet of nuclear powered ice breakers for decades, primarily for commercial purposes. There is also an operational off shore nuclear power plant. It's called Lomonosov, it supplies heat and electricity to the city of Pevek.
Did someone mention Russia and nuclear? From nuclear powered light houses along the Northern sea route that got stripped of anything that could be sold to the known defects in the RBMK design that were hidden even from the engineers and operators who had to manage & control them the history is rather damning. Why did the Russian oligarchy not fuel the Lomonosov, that supplies heat and electricity to the city of Pevek, with LNG; could it be that LNG is a more marketable cash crop?
@@BernardLS You can study the experience accumated at Pevek to learn how to build and design off shore nuc power. Or you can write political rants. Your choice.
@@artirm1979 Is doing both not an option? Part of the study would be the economics of the situation. The staff at the Lomonosov will need to be good as they are a rather long way from any additional support and Pevek can get very isolated very quickly as was demonstrated last November.
@@BernardLS Yes, support is an issue for any SMR. A lot of them are meant for remote locations. That said, Lomonosov currently has two job openings for control and safety technicians . I wish I qualified)
@@artirm1979 So are you not qualified because you are still in training / education or are you working in a different discipline? I appreciate the need to isolate the 'first in service of type' SMR for safety reason but still hold the opinion that Pevek is a step to far; would not Dikson or Norilsk have satisfied the need for isolation but allowed better support in the case of a mishap? The services around the Yamal peninsular must be better than out at Chukotka Okrug?
The NS Savannah was the first nuclear powered merchant ship launched in 1959, and in service from 1962-1972. It was followed by the Otto Hahn, the Mutsu, and the only one still in service, the Sevmorput.
i can't believe he missed the savannah while researching for this episode. i still have my nat'l geo with a full article on the ship. also, though not a nuke powered ship, there was a us army ship (MH-1A, the Sturgis) that was a floating nuke power station and was used in the panama canal zone from 1968 to 1975.
Though, there was a picture of the Savannah in the report. Curious. I had an opportunity to see the Savannah as a child when it came to the SF Bay Area. That was a long time ago…
The key to making SMRs successful is to make them maintenance free with a 20+ year life span and mass produced on an assembly line. This will increase their reliability and lower their cost making them essentially "plug-and -play."
NUSCALE energy just ipo'd. SMR. I agree. Plug and play will be vital to future energy production
Yes, no technology is cost effective when built as one offs.
Fine, as long as the shipping companies are obligated to reclaim the power units from any sunken ships, regardless of cost.
and we all know that'll happen.
@@Babarudra As there is potential great value, it would likely happen. Or, better yet, propulsion units can be leased by a company that is underwritten by the government.
@@UncleKennysPlace It would be great, I don't dispute that. Some of the sticking points are that businesses can not be trusted to regulate themselves. If anyone was going to regulate it, it should be a combo of the IAEA, ENS and NRC.
It would also mean some serious training for the techs that are onboard each vessel; which would have to be paid for from somewhere.
All I'm getting at is that it would be a lot more than companies promising/guaranteeing that they'll do the right thing, and/or random governments giving the thumbs up, especially those that have shady records already when it comes to marine oversight.
I like that matt always give surface level knowledge but make it interesting and technical enough for common folks like me, great video and explanation
Glad you think so!
I agree with a lot of commenters about the unscrupulous operators of a lot of ships. Fleets of commercial nuclear power ships would need a degree of regulation that does not currently exist. Assuming that regulation could be put in place, Nuclear power for commercial shipping is a good idea. However, I expect upfront cost would discourage adopting this technology for shipping. But, if small reactors were to become well established for electricity grids, the cost would come down and this would indeed be a very attractive technology for shipping.
Regulation is why we currently do not have more nuclear energy. It will only increase costs and decrease adoption and hurt peoples lives. There is no need for it. Nuclear is already one of the safest forms of energy.
@@emperorpicard4901 My God, how naive are you? Do you really think nuclear power stations would have a great safety record if they were not heavily regulated? Would you really want ship registered in Liberia and Panama sailing through close to critical fishing areas or into harbours in major cities if those countries were also overseeing the safety standards?
Like any form of energy nuclear energy can be very safe or very dangerous depending if the safety features are properly engineered and maintained. The problem with nuclear energy is it has a lot more potential to create a major disaster when things to wrong.
@@davesutherland1864 My God, how irrational are you? A great safety record is relative, compares to what? Compared to coal or fossil fuels, YES absolutely!
"Would you really want ship registered in Liberia and Panama sailing through close to critical fishing areas or into harbours in major cities if those countries were also overseeing the safety standards" Who cares about the countries? I care about the shipping companies reputation.
"Like any form of energy nuclear energy can be very safe or very dangerous depending if the safety features are properly engineered and maintained." Dude! That is true for EVERYTHING!
"The problem with nuclear energy is it has a lot more potential to create a major disaster when things to wrong." That is true for a lot of other things as well, a lot no where near as regulated as nuclear, such as damns, some of which have killed many more people than nuclear.
The point being is that you are ignoring all of the people that nuclear would save, which is in far greater numbers than people who get hurt by nuclear.
Stop responding to fear and think rationally, use your head, not your heart.
I would have assumed the reactor of each ship would kind of be outsourced and owned by a different company. They would put their own people on the vessel for oversight and security. Like how GE monitors their jet engines remotely as they are running, these power companies would monitor all reactors on all ships. The ship owner would just think of it as black box.
@@emperorpicard4901 How irrational am I? Well as someone who studied nuclear engineering and once worked for a company developing nuclear reactor technology, I am about average. I think most people have no idea how safe OR dangerous nuclear technology is. Implemented correctly and it is hard to find its rival. Implement incorrectly and it is a nightmare. It is safe because of the regulation and no one I met seemed to have a problem with that. They all understood the risks, benefits and the reasons for the oversight required.
the other factor is that the much smaller size of reactors on ships you can scram the reactor and even if you don't cool it the decay heat wont exceed safe limits.
One huge thing that I'm not seeing here that all nuclear technology is highly regulated by the government, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This includes research reactors, breeder reactors, nuclear power plants, and the military nuclear fleet. Many of these are run by the "greedy corporations" some post are talking about. These laws are highly involved in the operation of the reactor. Having worked at a power plant, I can tell you that we have government regulatory officials that work onsite to oversee operations. I also happen to have been in the US Nuclear Navy. I can tell you that the NRC inspections were no joke. You can be confident that any marine fleet will not be able to cut corners and sail.
Well the NRC does not control shipping in Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malta, where 70% of all ships are registered, in fact the reason most ships are not registered with the US or other highly regulated countries is to avoid the stricter marine regulations imposed by their own countries. There are your "greedy corporations at work". They won't give a kazoo about your regulators, country or your safety rules and regulations. I honestly can't believe you think its not about money and all corporations will follow your laws.. They do now exactly the opposite to what your saying, they absolutely and knowingly fly flags of convenience so they can cut corners and sail however they want..
There are many more countries working on Th reactors than the ones you mentioned and all of them are small salt reactors in different designs. There were a lot of countries that built ships with reactors, but the problem was that very many have resistance to nuclear-powered ships and especially in their civilian ports, which posed more problems than it was worth.
It was also another use that I saw quite a few years ago that the US fleet would look at using reactors to produce both aviation and ship fuel by extracting CO2 from seawater at a price that would make fuel cheaper than what we in Europe pay now for fuel and it could also help with the acidification of the oceans.
Is a Canadian who has made a lot of good videos about Th / U reactors for over 10 years now, so if you have not looked at his, there is very good information there and he still follows conferences.
Titanic engine nuclear power ship
I really like your videos on nuclear energy because you always talk very objective and professionally about it and don't turn them into fear mongering or purely personal opinion based like most people do. Keep it up please.
The fear mongering is justified sir.. for sure.
Research miami cooling pond leak turkey point.. thats in my teeth.. safe? Not at all kids.. no.
@@dertythegrower Fear mongering is never justified and the new generation of MSR's is nothing like the old style reactors.
Economic advantage: since fuel is a much smaller part of costs, especially day to day costs, a nuclear ship can run faster with little cost difference. Many cargo ships run at slower speeds to save on fuel.
So nuclear ships can arrive quite a bit sooner than their diesel competitors. This makes just-in-time shipping more viable - there are many customers who would rather get many small shipments sooner at higher cost, this lets them get big shipments sooner at a potentially lower cost. Best of both worlds.
Might get the ships to port quicker, but seems that ports are more of the bottleneck these days.
@@Outsideville At the moment, certainly a problem. But a quicker turnaround time also means using multiple smaller ports is more viable, as you can make more trips between them - even dropping off at multiple ports - in the time it might take a conventional fuel ship just to go to one port (just spitballing here).
I’m also inclined to think that off-shore floating ports could be a useful development. Unload your super large container ships there, break down, and disperse to smaller ships to go into your smaller ports.
@@CMVBrielman I like the multiple ports idea, but not the sub-port idea. Adding another step in the chain from ship to truck just seems like a bad idea, especially having it out to sea. A significant amount of time is already spent on port operations; this would only serve to tie up more total ship-hours in port time. Nevermind the fact that the cargo itself has to deal with longer processing times.
One of the less obvious but very noteworthy- the insurance on cargo and vessel. I'ts not unusual for a container cargo vessel to have more insurance coverage on cargo than itself. And that insurance is brokered by the trip, not by the season or year like car insurance. Avery nuke "civilian" vessel has traveled under a national flag and papers that commit the issuer to restoration and damage through the national treasuries. Some ports still won't allow them in port.
And how many marine mammals wiped out by ship strike due to that higher speed?
I like the idea of nuclear reactors making a liquid fuel for shipping
The MSR's are already in use around the world.
Exactly. New technology making fuel from the CO2 in the air would dovetail nicely.
I think I'd be more comfortable using nucleur power to create clean hydrogen/ammonia and using that to power ships. Seems like a better bet to ensure the plants receive regular maintenance and less chance of proliferation if they can be kept in one place and subject to one jurisdiction.
That involves considerable conversion losses. I imagine there are ways to regulate the safety of these reactors. For example you could have a ruling similar to emission control zones that only allows reactors that meet certain standards. Maybe it's possible to lock down the reactor to such an extent, that it becomes impossible to tamper with it and never needs maintenance.
That's one of the most sensible ideas I've seen in the comments so far. Bravo!
In some countries (Portugal/Middle east) solar is as cheap as 10$/MWh, while nuclear cost estimates go from 80 to 250$/MWh.
So economical it seems to make more sense to use solar in certain countries than nuclear.
Better than land based nuclear would be solar: Solar without batteries is around 20th of the price of nuclear, and you dont need 24/7 power for clean hydrogen/ammonia generation, you just generate when is sunny, in places like Australia. You budget your project around say 10 hours a day/300 days of production per year (like most factories)
@@stevetaylor2818 Solar isn't reliable enough and takes up far too much land for the energy required.
Modern US sub cores are now designed to last life of the boat, not months. No more refueling, just decom the whole ship at EOL. The months underwater limit is based on food loadout. Dealing with the spent fuel is still a thing, of course.
Then again that decom is expensive, which should be calculated in the costs of operating the ship.
Nuclear vessels cost curve is an U. High build costs, low operating costs, high decommissioning costs. One can't exactly send it to scrapper yard in China or india who is used to cutting diesel boats to pieces for decades.
Only the nuclear navies have facilities for decommissioning nuclear vessels and even then it ain't ease or cheap even with right facilities. Given how many hulks of Russian nuclear vessels just sit in anchor up North waiting their turn to be defueled and decommissioned due to how hideously expensive and slow the process of decommissioning the _reactor_ is. Fuel you can take out easily. The problem is the whole reactor section made of now very well radiated and radioactive metal. Tons and tons of it. One again can't recycle it or just dump it. It is radioactive for decades, if not centuries. It has to be entombed or otherwise safely warehoused. Then again "safely" in Russia means tow it to desolate "reactor grave yard" beach up North. Not that USA solution is much better... it is called burying the reactor hulks on a disposal trench....
Thus one can't just say one goes through the initial high cost and then it's smooth sailing. Nope there is big fat expensive bill at the end also and _oh right end of life ship not worth anything commercially anymore for owner. Right people always treat those so responsibly and don't abandon them in bankruptcies or so on_ . One would have to escrow the money during operation and have the decom and decon plan ordered and in place before hand.
Not to mention costs, it isn't fast process either. It takes years of waiting just for the "hot" reactor to core itself to calm down to be able to handle it at all. For all that time the ship must sit in anchor, guarded and maintained on mothball, while being worthless
Thus should one expects shrewd shipping company to pay for it once the ship isn't worth anything anymore...... well I would like to sell the Eiffel Tower to them for scrap.
The problem with US naval reactors is that they apparently use weapons grade (or near it) fuel. The main reason for the lifetime reactor for the USN is that refueling a naval reactor is lengthy, very expensive and can only be done in one or two locations.
@@aritakalo8011 yup
@@echomande4395 For this argument, you may as well just call it marine grade cuz the reason is power density, which would still apply to a cargo vessel, though not as much so as a sub.
@@nsilversradd Cost would be a huge factor. When enriching nuclear fuel, the cost is not linear but exponential.
Hi Matt! Always enjoy your work. Being a 20 year Navy vet with three tours on nuclear subs the idea of nuclear commercial shipping seems like a logical next step in the effort to make a more sustainable planetary energy model. The m-msr sounds particularly intriguing. I did want to clarify a point that has come up on your videos regarding the refueling cycle of nuclear submarines. Yes, they can operate for months submerged, but the limiting factor is food for the crew. They can usually go the same 20+ years before refueling as the carriers.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Also twenty years is a typical life expectancy for a commercial hull so about the time the reactor needs refuelling, due to the elements being 'poisoned' (?), it is time to drag it up a beach on the Indian sub continent and start beating the thing to death with hand tools. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
As a ship designer I'm for nuclear power, but only on larger vessels with long travel routes (naval, cargo, container) or extended periods (ice breakers, research vessels, etc.). Smaller vessels (offshore support, fishing vessels, windmill vessels, coastal cargo, etc.) which normally operates closer to port should seek other measures. We're already working on methanol solutions which produces hydrogen onboard for consumption, or vessels directly fueled by the use of ammonia. Most ships nowadays which we are designing are going for a "future fuel ready", meaning they reserve space or have plans at hand making it possible to do a conversion whenever the technology is ready.
Most ship owners does not have the financial support to be the very first going for a "green" solution. So for the most part they'll choose solutions that are known and relatively easy to implement, which are batteries for peak shaving or scaled down solutions to serve hotel load for instance. Batteries enables better utilization of the main engines and reduces service needs and emissions. For other ship owners they are larger and could take the financial hit if a new solution does not work as intended. Most of these are still dependent upon governmental support or support from other means (EU Horizon funding, suppliers, etc.).
All in all the entire maritime industry is working on this. I doubt nuclear power is the solution, but we're becoming greener every single day.
Thank you for providing some thoughtful feedback from someone in the industry.
First let me say I’m not anti-nuclear power. But I’m all too aware of an industry where cutting of corners in ship safety, crew conditions, proper training, the disposal of waste and the use of non-sea worthy ships beyond their reasonable life-span currently runs rampant in international waters where literally ‘anything goes’. So, forgive me, but do we really want these ‘responsible’ firms to have nuclear fleets that could just sail into our harbors? That feels like giving little kids keys to the car to drive themselves to school when they engage in plenty of risk on their bikes.
That kind of reckless behavior is exactly whats killing the seas. So having nuclear reactors would force new regulations and training. Cutting corners on those would be practically suicide for said companies.
@@Andytlp "So having nuclear reactors would force new regulations and training." How about enforcing this first and then think about nuclear reactors on ships...
@@TheMightyZwom we dont operate that way
@@Andytlp Which is amongst the reasons why I think nuclear power on commercial ships is a horrible idea.
I haven't looked at it this way. Thanks for your perspective. The only thing I can imagine happening to mitigate this is government regulations.. which I could go and on about. Nuclear engineers have their work cut out for them
Another floating MSR worthy of mention is the ThorCon TMSR-500 being built to deploy in Indonesia. They are promising ~ 11 cents/kWh
Great watch. Keep it up mate👍
I’m a 20 year marine engineer trained in ICE propulsion plants. I’ve been saying that nuclear was the best way to go for a very long time. With the newer, safer reactors available now, this has become even more viable for marine transportation and shipping. The future is looking amazing.
So if a small boat load of rag tag Somali pirates can hijack a ship in the open ocean, even amongst war ships that are there to protect the said ships, how do you think it would go having even a slightly trained crew of hostiles take over a ship either at sea or in a port and blow up the ship in any harbour they are in or take the ship into. I imagine that they may be small reactors on the ships in comparison to say Japans, but the environmental damage they would do to that port and probably city and even country would be devastating. Not so sure it would look so great then..
@@Piesy001 These reactors are intrinsically safe so can’t melt down and are nearly tamper proof. Without a significant amount of ordinance wrapped around the reactor, I doubt much damage could be done. Being that they are an order of magnitude smaller than the standard fission reactor and use hardened fuel pellets, there isn’t much that could be done by your evil doers to make the mess you speak of.
10:23 MSRs _are_ more fuel-efficient, but let's keep in mind that this >95% fuel efficiency estimate is based on the total lifespan of the reactor. If fuel concentration drops below critical mass, the reactor won't function, even if there is still unused fuel in the reactor. So, by refueling and operating at critical mass for decades, the ratio of total burnt fuel to unused fuel in the core goes up. Solid fuel systems are limited by how well the coolant can handle the increase in heat transfer as the fuel pellets expand due to xenon, so the fuel gets thrown out more often. US Naval reactor fuel is customized to burn between 10-25% of their uranium (I'm stating that from memory, correct me if I'm wrong), and the 1% estimate in the video is from land-based reactors. Liquid fuel reactors like MSRs don't have this issue because xenon can leave the core, but that comes with its own challenges.
Xenon 135 is solvable issue and it decays very fast into Cs 135. Cs 135 as beta decay long lived isotope is not very dangerous.
@@samuelgomola9097 right, but the gamma emissions from xenon's decay can be high enough to alert satellites designed to monitor nuclear weapons development.
@@mattbrody3565 then, that's a good thing, since the reactors can be tracked, no?
@@mohdridzuanisa2373 it could be used for tracking, but when tracking nuclear weapons development, it’s best to minimize false positives. If that xenon could be stored in a leaded storage chamber, maybe that would help, but I don’t know how regulators would feel about that.
Great video. Spreading a nuanced view on nuclear ships. Appreciate it.
It looks like they have a lot of advantages over the current fossil fuel ships, but we also need to compare them to new hydrogen and BEV ships. I also wonder how will developing countries like Bangladesh deal with safely dismantling nuclear reactors at the end of the ships life.
A 100 MW reaction will have a weight or around 1000 tons (perhaps more) and they must be removed before the ship can be dismantled. The iron in the body is simply recycled and has low value.
"I also wonder how will developing countries like Bangladesh deal with safely dismantling nuclear reactors at the end of the ships life" not a big problem, you should not underestimate developing countries, India (A developing country) has plenty of reactors which have been running safely for decades, india slo makes 20 percent of its energy from nuclear, so they are experienced with it and they also have nuclear submarines too.
Citing Wikipedia on nuclear marine propulsion:
"By 1990, there were more nuclear reactors powering ships (mostly military) than there were generating electric power in commercial power plants worldwide."
When a solution has been perfectly well established from a engineering perspective three decades ago and well established in military craft; and today the implementation in commercial craft is still close to zero; there are probably very good reasons for this. All the technical benefits mentioned within this video were full known to everybody building ships for close to 50 years.
The problems with nuclear fuels are not entirely restricted to preventing reactor failures. Just the handling of the fuel, either new or spent, while making sure that non-proliferation laws are ensured, present a massive investment into security. Military vehicles have these security concerns covered anyways due to their purpose, so there is very little differential cost to them.
Shipping companies on the other hand want their ships crew to be as small as possible, and they want to spend as little time as possible sitting in harbour. Also they like their ships to be able to go to most harbours in the world, instead of constantly being told by their home-nation that they may not travel to annother non-allied nation, since there are currently some security concerns about bringing nuclear materials into those countries. In todays economic setup, telling any European or American shipping company that all of a sudden the have to avoid Chinese harbours for a few years will probably end in bancrupty pretty quickly.
A voice of reason right here.
Thank you. One of the best comments I have seen here so far.
I have been wondering for years why this hasn't been looked at more seriously. There is also tactical advantage to an all nuclear powered fleet. Not to mention companies are now looking at ways of using some of the nuclear waste to make low power batteries.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work.
@@BernardLS In terms of safety in the case of loss of cooling small marine reactors are much easier to deal with than large grid scale reactors, and molten salt based designs in particular are very easy to keep within spec just because they run really hot by design. Pretty much all MSR reactors are designed with total loss of active cooling in mind. There are for example some designs that incorporate passive safety cooling simply by allowing air to circulate around parts of the reactor through natural convection.
I don't see an easy solution for the other safety risks though. Mass adoption nuclear power for shipping would require a completely new set of regulations to prevent ship operators from getting too stupid, and these would have to be well enforced too. The ships would basically have to be treated like miniature nuclear power plants, with all the responsibilities that comes with it. But due to public stigma against anything "nuclear" most regulators refuse to ever touch the issue.
We have already seen a famous use of SMRs in ships.
It was when Greenpeace associates were making use of the two-reactor Russian icebreaker *Yamal*. They were vocal on the net about their exploration of the Arctic Ocean, but forgot to acknowledge this premeditated use of nuclear power.
And by "forgot" I mean not one word ever. The story came out when one of them needed to be evacuated off the ice, and the Yamal made a special trip.
Oh my god, Greenpeace did a bubu...and what about all the problems nuclear plant owners hide from the public all the time, which have to bubble up through whistle blowers?
Will it be considered steam power we just figured out more efficient ways of heating up the water?
Yes, they do those now.. also Methane is 20X more greenhouse gas than co2 which plants use... we need to capture methane, not nuclearize
@@dertythegrower But the methane conc is superlow and it will be very tough to capture it.
"It's like a giant kettle!"
The enhanced regulatory oversight brought by nuclear propulsion will also bring order and decency to the murky and exploitative world of international shipping.
Also, piracy will end because it will no longer be tolerated. Allow seizures of nuclear ships? As if. The roll up of pirates will be swift and BRUTAL.
Not a good idea thinking longterm and seeing recent leak history since 1950s to even FPL plants leaking since 90s, to this day in FL(infamous turkey point cooling pond leaking into everglades)
Due to profit motive, I imagine many doing companies would cut corners on the reactor and maintenance, greatly increasing the likely hood of a leak it accident unless very strick global standards and inspections are put in place
love your show keep up the good work.
Any expansion of nuclear power generation is good because it will help us further develop the technical expertise to drive down costs.
My guess is that the barriers to adoption won't be either technological or financial. Instead it'll be politics, particularly surrounding security and liability.
For the largest container ships (20,000+ TEU) that tends to have a more or less fixed route anyway, it should be possible. It shouldn't be that difficult to create guidelines and routines how to handle the nuclear powered ships in a select few ports. The life span of the ships itself ought to be long enough where the long refueling time ought to be justifiable, similar with the larger required crew.
Special permission would be required to get them to be permitted to regularly cross the Suez, but perhaps easier access to the northern sea route might be a solution to that problem.
SMR's still have a lot prove on dry land, regarding cost and safety so ships add lots of complexity as some comments here talk about ship management and training is not up to nuclear standards. Reactors that are walk away safe, handle total power losses, and shipwrecks and can be insured against radiation releases would have potential. Thorium MSR may reduce waste duration to 300 years, but U-235 fueled MSR would still need 10,000 years to decay. Fuel security would be an issue too if ships are hijacked.
For shipping I'd say hydrogen or ammonia makes more sense. Solar energy in places like Suez in Egypt, the straights of Hormuz and Morocco could desalinise water and create the fuel close to shipping lanes with water as a bonus.
if the added cost of hydrogen, ammonia or other e-fuels like methanol is more than the added cost of going to nuclear, nuclear sounds like the better option.
surprisingly the shipping industry produces way less Carbon emissions per Caontainer than if it was flown or driven.
There's a few floating SMRs you don't mention (that i would say are closer to deployment) but glad to see you are exploring the vast potentials of nuclear energy in decarbonising.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you think nuclear will decarbonise anything. That dog won't hunt. Nuclear uses more carbon than any other electrical energy source except coal and natural gas. It uses 18 times more carbon than renewables. What do you think they use to mine the ore and construct those massive reactors. It ain't pixie dust. If they ever drill a hole to hell to safely store their waste from hell, what will dig the holes? Carbon.
@@jackfanning7952 Stop spewing bullshit, it's not 1986 anymore.
I think this will become a thing eventually- If it was ramped up and made routine it beats the other methods. Nuclears drawbacks are always about high set up costs, public fear etc.
Good video, as usual! A mistake in the video is calling nuclear power renewable. Its clean and relatively CO2-free over its life-cycle but not renewable since uranium is not renewed. It's an important difference vs wind and solar. Love nuclear power for its energy density though!
Given the scale of markets, it doesn't seem like nuclear shipping is the right place to jump start a nuclear renaissance. Lets get at least one MSR operational that is optimized for supplying power to the grid. If it happens that this reactor has appropriate characteristics for use in marine propulsion, that would be great. But safety and proliferation concerns for operating on the high seas should be higher than for land or near land stationary operation.
French and Americans have been doing it for decades - even civilian cargo boats have been designed - so if we decide to actually register ships in first world country it should be okay
well considering cargo ship are getting bigger it would make a perfect sense that ship using nuclear energy, it would save the fuel cost (in the long run at least). and also could carry more capacity
Co2 + water + Power (Nuclear) => Fuel... Fill shipping with this fuel since most ports wont allow nuclear ships and the entire cycle is net zero.
I think small nuclear is important, even if as just an interim step. And I ablosutely recommend watching Kurzgesagt video on nuclear energy.
Great video again. I like that you always try to show the whole picture and not be biased.
One point though, especially for the military applications: if there is any war, or these nuclear ships get damaged or sunk, probably the damage they cause is huge.
Maybe commercial ships could be targetted by terrorists which runs on nuclear?
Not really, there are already nuclear powered ships at the bottom of the ocean.
I am all for increased use of new modern nuclear power plants but I am very sceptical to the use of these in commercial shipping. As covered in this video there certainly are potential benefits but there are some issues that was not covered.
1. Risk of sinking / cost of salvage - On average about 150-160 cargo ships sink every year. If the use of commercial nuclear ships increase then it is only a question of time before a nuclear powered vessel sinks. Cargo vessels that sink are normally just left on the bottom of the sea but nuclear vessels / reactor will have to be recovered to prevent a radioactive release once the reactor corrodes. The reactor can be designed to minimise the risk of radioactive release but the recovery operation is insanely expensive depending on the size of the vessel (it will be large to justify nuclear power), water depth, how damaged the ship is, etc. When the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank in 2000, it cost 90 mill. GBP or about 215 million USD in today's currency just to salvage it. The Kursk was also a lot smaller than what a commercial nuclear cargo ship would be so the cost could be a lot higher.
2. Insurance and emergency response - Just imaging the insurance rate to cover the salvage operation as described above. In addition the current emergency response would not be equipped to deal with a radioactive release at sea. So far it has only been the military that has capabilities to manage this but what do you do if the vessel is registered in for instance Panama and the ship sink in international waters. The operator will not have the capabilities and resources to handle the situation, so which country will take responsibility and how will pay for it?
3. Crew skills and costs - The crew on cargo vessel are predominantly from countries with the lowest wages and just basic training. Operating a nuclear reactor takes a very different skill set both from the crew and vessel owner/operator. There is a huge learning curve to get ready to operate such reactors.
4. Regulatory regime - Governments and Class societies (companies that certify commercial ships such as DNV, Lloyds, ABS, etc.) do not have rules, standards and procedures in place to regulate such vessels so there is a long way to go before vessels could be constructed and approved ready for commercial operations .
I do not think we will see commercial nuclear shipping anytime soon, if ever.
Once the MSR-Technology is matured and the legislation globally is in place (it's by far all countries that allow nuclear vessels in Port - irrespective of technology) it'll be a great idea.
Maersk in the other hand have committed themselves to running on Co2 neutral power-to-x fuels before 2040.
I actually see this as an opportunity to mature the MSR technology. It's not ideal, but an accident at sea has much less environmental impact than on land. I hate to say repeat this old sang, but "delusion is the solution to pollution." Also, I'm not sure that the environmental impact would be worse than an oil leak from a diesel vessel.
Let's concentrate on building small nuclear on land.
And stop closing down existing, safe, carbon-free plants like Diablo Canyon, you stupid Gavin 'Doofus' Newson!
Hi
Really appreciate your channel
I have thought for a number of years that nuclear is the way to go for heavy shipping but undecided for passenger craft maybe they would be best fuelled by hydrogen generated by nuclear or some other green technology
Keep up the good work
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
Great info and an honest look at nuclear power for shipping. Nuclear shipping is long overdue.
why did you not mention the NS Savannah the first nuclear-powered merchant ship
Also the fact many nuclear waste has been lost due to russia and US military testing.. no thanks
@Lordkyzer2 Thank you. That is exactly the question I was going to ask.
Granted that she couldn't haul "a lot" since she also had a few passenger cabins and associated accommodations but it was a pioneering vessel and, although not operating commercially these days, it still exists.
I mean it has worked very well for aircraft carriers, and nuclear subs. So its proven tech.
That said, not sure its great to have many mobile nuclear powerplants that are pretty unprotected.
But it does sound like a good idea on paper atleast
@@hc3657 i’m not actually sure that would work although it would be fairly highly enriched..
@@hc3657 Dirty bombs were a rather stupid post 9/11 American hysteria. Even if you could safely construct one (you can't), the contamination would only end up scaring people, not giving them radiation poisoning or cancer.
@@hc3657 From what you are saying I find it hard to believe that you have worked in the nuclear industry. I find it hard to believe because I have also been working in the industry. You are blind if you think the NRC is helping the American nuclear industry.
I'm a seafarer. I think not only the construction of the ship will drive the cost of merchant marine vessel but also the trainings of crew and probably additional number of crews needed to safely man these nuclear ships. Now vessels are operating only at minimum manning. I'm not from very big ships but I can attest that those 4000-30000 gross tonnage ships only have 17-21 crew barely enough for the safe manning.
Cost of construction and training is a matter of popularity and scale. Technically speaking there's no reason you can't have them. Maybe you need 4-5 extra crew members but you make up for it on fuel cost and environmental tax (if the governments recognize the benefit of lack of pollution).
genusmig We have a shortage of pilots right now. Does that mean we shouldn't build airplanes?
While I have support for MSRs, before they go big on the high seas I would like to see quite a few hours on more accessible land units. Especially as staffing on ships would be lower and likely harder to debug in ships.
Consolidate and increase US nuclear on land, then use part of that to create alternative fuels for shipping. And nuclear on board a ship would seem to make it a bigger hijacking target.
But what are they going to do with the ship after they hijack it? Dump some radioactive water? Because to get to the fuel, in the core, would take days with lots of very powerful cutting torches. And that assumes the people cutting it open are just going to die from the exposer they get.
we need to start reprocessing spent fuel. France has been doing this since the beginning. But it isn't "cost effective" for the rest of the world.
Great video. I had been wondering about this issue for a while but I have not seen many stories about these projects. Seems like an obvious solution considering the track record for the US Navy with nuclear propulsion.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
@@BernardLS Well you have certainly addressed a lot of issues, I will give you that. I don’t think shipping companies flying flags of convenience would be too involved in the reactor operation. Instead it would probably be system managed by companies like NuScale where they would work with the ship manufacturers to produce a compelling solution for shipping companies. The dangers of nuclear are greatly overblown. I can only think of one right off the top - the ship sinks in the ocean and takes the reactor with it to the bottom. In the 1950s France used to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. Not a great thing to do but what we are doing now with fossil fuels is increasing the PH of the entire ocean with CO2 becoming carbolic acid. Eventually the whole ocean could become uninhabitable for marine life.
@@dlewis8405 France in the 1950's? Russia was doing it much more recently than that. 'Not great, but not terrible' (sorry but that quote is obligatory whenever nuclear & Russian get on the same page) IMHO nuclear energy except for air independent propulsion on naval submarines is not necessary, even aircraft carriers can be engineered to do without it.
Hello Matt It Is in my umble opinione that decarbonising the most polluting Sectors First by focusing mostly on them Will produce the most effect in stopping global warming
Decarbonising thise Sectors top Will Also help but as I said the most polluting Sectors must get priority
Letting the 20 biggest cargo ships run on nuclear would make a huge difference in carbon emissions.
It's a focused 'quick' win in a situation where there aren't good alternatives available.
I don't think that would have the impact you think it would. There are nearly 10k container ships with an average age of 10.6 years according to wikipedia. The largest ships are all pretty close in size, so there are not few super big ones that would make your idea viable.
This all assuming wikipedia is correct. It probably makes more sense to use reactors to make carbon neutral fuels and power more existing ships.
Bullshit
@@mikenyc1501 Ok, let's make 10.000 nuclear engines.
@@siemdecleyn3198 a better idea would be just to use a few nuclear reactors to make carbon fuels which can then be used in the engines that already exist.
@@mikenyc1501 sounds like you would miss the advantages of mass production of nuclear reactors, costs for of production and transport of fuels, there would be a lot of wasted energy (electricity>hydrogen>useful fuel>transport>burning>mechanical energy) and the continued pollution of combustion engines.
While I support nuclear reactors, I really am worried about using nuclear propulsion in army. What if such ship gets into a battle and is destroyed by a couple of missiles or torpedoes? The nuclear fuel could leak into the oceans...
Nuclear submarines have sunk before in the past for various reasons (usually technical malfunctions). Those wrecks are continuously monitored by multiple countries and so far they haven't detected any leaks, and some of those wrecks have been down there for decades.
Many of the vehicles that are powered by nuclear reactors are already going to have nuclear weapons so that is the least of our concerns when it comes to nuclear.
*"What if...?"* Earth's oceans are full of nuclear waste. Ever hear of Fukushima?
@@eugeniustheodidactus8890 Your point being...? If something isn't perfect that doesn't mean we have to make it even worse. Oh and Fukushima did not dump the water yet. They are storing everything at least til the summer.
Nuclear fuel is not a blob of ever-molten posionous lava that is going to chase every living thing down before summoming the antichrist. Seawater is already saturated naturally in dissolved uranium, solid fuel its not going to dissolve for centuries. Besides the bars are coated in zircalloy (they are supposed to.work at high temperature submerged in water to begin with). For molten fuels I don't know, but people underestimate the size of the ocean, a few tons of the most dangerous waste dissolved into sea water would be.... Undetectable anyway.
The same way we could be having a Chernobyl per year and global exposition to radiation is not going to be significanly increased over background (the atmosphere is big) we could be dumping all our waste into the oceans every year and properly dispersed would not affect the ecosystem. Disclaimer: i'm not saying it would be a good idea, just to expose the scales we are talking about, regarding the miniscule use of nuclear we use as a civilitzation versus the fantasy apocalyptic scenarios
Another potential plus would be that while they're in port, they could provide power to the local power grid, offsetting power produced by coal, gas, and oil powered power plants.
It's nice to see you cover an energy source which is actually viable.
I work in this industry as an Merchant Marine engineer. I have zero trust in the companies to provide the necessary maintenance support to make this safe. I would leave the industry if they tried to make this change. They’re already doing everything they can to eliminate employment of mariners from first world countries. Try to imagine a world full of nuclear powered ships operated by third world crews. Then add on the ships being owned by companies that are in and out of bankruptcy on a regular basis. That’s the reality of what this would become.
I'm pro nuclear, but i didn't think about this and you may get the point, it's impossible to trust these type of companies.
There are certain reactors that do not require any maintenance whatsoever. You seal them and they work for some decades until you need to replenish the fuel. I think those could work. Maintenance can be done at the time of refueling.
The IAEA and regulators from the major nuclear nations would have to place strict safety licensing requirements for these ships. That would filter all those companies that wish to cut corners.
Listen to this man!
@@nuclearmex630 Hahahahahahahah! You said IAEA and regulators from the major nuclear nations and strict safety licensing requirements in the same sentence. I don't care what anyone says, that's funny!.
Amazing content as always, but I wonder if to really drive home the difference between the mMSR and normal reactor, if when showing the percentage, instead of starting from zero, you started at 95% and then wound it down to 1%, just to visualize the difference more directly?
As an added bonus, excess power not used by the ship could desalinate water, especially while loading/unloading. Heard California running low on that liquid gold. Just a thought.
That is not logistically feasible. Besides, most nuclear ships shut down their reactors in port.
(edited to correct my sentence formation...👍)
Okay... background... I'm a former Reactor Operator from the USN...SSBN 732, USS Alaska...I also have a BSEE, and worked in engineering at the largest nuke-energy plant in the US...Palo Verde...(just west of Phoenix).
Glad you mentioned fuel density. Civilian power plants operate with about 3%...thus requiring refueling every 18 months or so. This 3% fuel is totally safe...you can hold the pellets in your hand.
On the other hand....Navy nuclear power design requires decades between refueling...thus the fuel density must be wayyy higher... it's literally weapons-grade.
So there's the question...can you safely run a civilian ship with highly enriched fuel?
Not like pirates or terrorists could figure a way to get at it...but countries like Iran and N. Korea definitely would.
Great thought experiment...but in my opinion... gonna be "rough seas" before this ever happens.
(See...i made a pun...😊)
Cheers!
JerBear
Charlotte USA
Also...sodium explodes when in contact with water. Trying to understand how safe it would be to put that kind of reactor in the middle of the ocean...🤔
Thanks for the great insights, Jerry.
Jerry, first: thank you for your service man. Really.
I am a civ, but as a contractor or employee or one, worked on JBER a little, Shemea a lot more than I wanted, (rebuilding hangers for the F-117) and Eielson Air Force Base also rebuilding a hanger but for the F-35's stationed there. It is amazing to me, with the little experience I have had, that anything gets done at all in the military. It just takes so long and is sooooo expensive. But it does get done, and what you guys do and did with what y'all (and us civvies) built over the years is really amazing, and man, I appreciate it. Like, those hangers!!! They have to be built really tough, and man they were back in the early and mid '40's. Solid oak beams, planks, and girts. Like pounding a nail in concrete. You had to pre-drill to put a #40 galvanized spike into that stuff, and it was still freaking hard.
Anyway, Cheers! Lets all make America great again, OK?
@@4n2earth22 ummm..
Shemea?
JBER?
Hangars for the Air Force?
Maga?
As a navy vet...I have no idea what you're talking about.
Cheers
@@Vivacior (-;
I've worked for many years in the engineroom of a nuclear powered vessel and I can tell you that there's no way this is going to happen. The industry won't pay what it will cost to build, maintain and safely operate a fleet of nuclear powered cargo ships. The very idea is laughable. Imagine a Monrovia flagged super-max container ship, crewed by (pick your average low paid, poorly trained East-Asian island nation warm bodies), then add the complexities inherent in a nuclear powered ship and you have a recipe for disaster. Think Chernobyl, coming to a port near you. I don't think so. Great idea, but, like fusion power, it won't happen (unless you count the sun). Cheers, D.
Former MMN2 (USS Will Rogers, SSBN 659) who thought the same, and wrote as such. Thank you for your service.
When I was in, a) nuke school had a 40%, while b) we were 50% billeted. If the US Navy has a hard time recruiting, training and retaining talent, just imagine how the merchant marine would fair.
@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt Takes a fellow nuc to know why content like this is pie in the sky. Lots of us out there watching this, shaking our heads no and smiling as the memories come flooding back. I was SSN 583 - USS Sargo, fifth nuclear submarine in the world. Long time ago but the drill is still the same. Not going to happen in a profit oriented world.
Smooth sailing, friend. Cheers, D.
@@fodank To see just how much the drill has remained the same, have a look at Destin's chronicles of his experience aboard USS Toledo over at the SmarterEveryday channel. Talk about memories...
Not only that. But think of the terrorist targets that would be created by having multiple reactors in each port? Not for the risk of nuclear explosion, but for the 'dirty' bomb effects if a terrorist either hijacked one of these vessels or simply used explosives on the side near the reactor causing enough damage to contaminate an entire harbour and shut down a port and surrounding areas.
On a naval vessel the ship is generally protected by guns against terrorism (although the USS Cole put that to rest). But merchant vessels will be vulnerable to say the least.
@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt Watched a few of them, but for all the enthusiasm he had, I was reminded of all the riders we had on our boat at various times, each punching their ticket for sub pay and taking up space while we slogged away pushing the boat around. Good for Destin, but it was been there, done that for me. He'll never know the really good stories... Cheers, D.
Don't know if this is a good idea, but dismissing it outright sounds stupid. If the most important thing is lowering our carbon footprint then nuclear is a good short-term solution until we have cost-effective ways to store green energy. Perhaps using nuclear together with solar and wind would make a good combination for a low-carbon energy source
Plus new technologies coming online. Tidal, temperature gradient power plants in oceans, solar satellites, etc.
a thoght bn-600 and bn-800 is molten salt reactor, they are already operating in commercial mode for years.
First get the thorium reactors to work on shore then think about using them at ‘off shore sites’ and finally on board ships; a clear hierarchy of implementation where the body of experience is followed by devolution of regulation. The most significant indicator is that military use took a step away from SMR and fleet support vessels were never provided with the small reactors that could and would have been available. The use by submarines is mainly determined by the requirement for air independent energy provision and the fleet carrier use by the need for energy concentration and even with this requirement the latest British carriers are non-nuclear.
I'm seeing post about the workers on the ships. I don't think people are giving these workers enough credit. The would bet that the engine crew is full of highly skilled craftsmen and craftswomen that could handle the operation of a nuclear reactor. Plus these newer MSRs are designed to be less operations intensive than a conventional designs. The US Navy entrust 19 and 20 year olds to operate and maintain there nuclear fleet and they've never had a accident. We have to remember that sea travel can dangerous and there is no calling for help. You need a highly skilled and capable crew to handle everything that comes up. A dead in the water ship is a ship in a lot of danger regardless of a type of propulsion used.
I would be slightly concerned about these profit-seeking companies managing nuclear vessels. Them rushing to deliver things and cutting corners to maximize profits.
FPL power monopoly has a two leaking power plants causing the cooling ponds to release tainted radiated saltwater into our water of atlantic.. turkey point in miami is infact leaking, very under reported in nytimes and miaminewtimes
good point. how well did we do with shipping oil when a breakdown leads to spilling only oil.
it's like would we do this in our own back yards?
@@nameless1016 LOL when it comes to our own back yard people raise a big fuss about it even though it is technically safer operating on the ground than in a ship.
@@dertythegrower I hate when these companies get away with things. Most likely the company has some politician in their pocket thanks to good old lobbying.
China can have nuclear ships. Us Americans are NOT responsible enough!
This is a complete non-starter given the appalling way most shipping companies operate out of dodgy locations to reduce liability, regularly skip maintenance and operate insurance scams... Ammonia as a future fuel makes much more sense. Also since 40% of ALL shipping is currently moving fossil fuels, moving to renewables would greatly reduce the amount of shipping whatever its propulsion and therefore potential pollution.
Simon,
do you have any evidence to believe that shipping companies skip maintenace to save costs when it's just that sort of action that reduces reliability which is a huge cost by itself. Shipping companies have to run their ships reliably to ensure future trade, any company with a history of breakdowns won't be in business long.
@@iareid8255 Thus report highlights various issues including the lax regulations from many countries with lack of inspections at a lot of ports across the world as well as the fact that many vessels “go East” where the standards are even worse. Also what happens when’s nuclear ship sinks or worse runs aground and gets smashed to bits all over the coast?
Well, you could just say they have to use certified states as their flag to be allowed to use nuclear power.
Hi Matt. Love your videos. Thought you might want to know at 12:30 and a few times after that you say "SMR", instead of MSR.
I do think this is a great idea. Considering we've been doing this sort of thing since the 1960s (I didnt know it went that far back till this video) with Russia running such cargo ships now, it's clearly a viable option. I knew about the South Korean project but I didn't know about the UK one, so thanks for that.
But yes, it looks like the by 2050, hopefully much earlier, the world's shipping fleet will be mostly based on the flexible green methanol fuels we're seeing with Maersk, with and without wind assist, while there is a substantial minority of bigger and faster nuclear powered ships as well. I'm glad we've got practical and relatively economic carbon neutral solutions for our maritime industries.
I’m assuming the steam is cooled using the largest available heat sink, the ocean. If this was mass adopted, couldn’t thousands of ships dumping excess heat into the water cause warming as well?
Well it's a alternative compared to toxins in oil. The highest denominator is capital and profit.
Not at meaningful scale (and especially not compared to CO2 warming effect).
The energy level of the greenhouse effect versus like human power consumption is orders of magnitude difference. Think humanity uses 1% of daily solar output per year.
The warming would be much less significant than the warming associated with moving the same amount of cargo with fossil fuels.
Fun nuclear fact: On may 20th 1964 the NS Savannah, the first nuclear powered merchant vessel, was making her way to the Port of Baltimore, and in the process passed the USCGC White Pine as the crew was loading a SNAP-7B Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator on to Baltimore Harbor Lighthouse, making it the first atomic powered lighthouse. You can see the NS Savannah in the background of this pic: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Harbor_Light#/media/File%3ABaltimoreLight.jpg
im all for nuclear power - it just makes sense ON STABLE LAND. But shipping is just a bit too risky - these things sink frequently enough that makes it reasonably infeasible
I think nuclear power on ships are a very good idea. Yes, there are challenges in regulation and ship management, but those are social issues, far easier to overcome than the hard physical issues related to using ammonia or hydrogen fuels. Nationalising shipping or implementing robust regulation is far easier than overcoming the high conversion losses involved in creating hydrogen and related fuels.
'Nationalising shipping or implementing robust regulation' good luck selling either of those to the libertarians, they will call you lots of bad things even though sensible it is the only way to go.
At the end of the day, I think Nuclear power will be a stepping stone more than anything else.
We need to cut emissions immediately, and current nuclear power can help us do that…but eventually we’re going to be so flush with renewable energy that I don’t think it will be much of an issue anymore.
We’ll just be using all the excess energy to make hydrogen fuel for the ships.
We need to cut shipping.
Agree with it is a stepping stone. But not to renewable. . . rather, to nuclear fusion. Renewable is too unreliable, too hard to scale, too geographically dependent, and too expensive. Renewable installations require installed capacity of many multiples of energy needs because of the extended non producing times. Furthermore, the whole concept of "renewable can provide our current needs. . . " is fatally flawed. The thinking instead needs to be "how do we provide an order of magnitude more power at an order of magnitude less money". In the end, virtually everything is energy limited and massively expanding energy production will change the world. Just imagine a nuclear fusion reactor running a desalinization plant. It could provide Great Lakes volumes of clean fresh water.
@@condal32 yea I agree. We’re ultimately going to have to cut down drastically on what gets shipped and then ensure that the remainder gets shipped in a responsible manner.
At the end of the day though, maritime shipping is one of the most emissions efficient way to move fruit and vegetables around so we won’t be reducing it all the way to 0.
@@apostolakisl possibly, but I can’t shake the feeling that we don’t actually know how far away nuclear fusion is. I have yet to hear about it successfully powering anything for a day or even a week.
Maybe it’ll be hear in 10 years and then we just rapidly build out! But we need to hedge our bets that it might not be ready for another 200 years in which case we need something else to limp along until then. Nuclear provides a good backbone for this, but I think renewables will play a large role as well.
Great info Matt, thank you.
☢️
Nuclear power makes sense for warships since they can defend themselves against an attacker looking to wreak havoc by sabotaging the reactor. Civilian vessels are not equipped to repel a determined attacker and I can imagine the resultant damages a Somali pirate scenario could cause.
You realize that reactors can't blow up like nuclear bombs, right?
So Matt your channel is very interesting and hope you continue with nuclear power as its future is already guaranteed.
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’. Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather lack thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. Why not use nukes? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
High-value Ships ran by the army of rich governments (US, UK, France, etc) are well maintained and this, imo, is part of the reason why there was no issues with them yet. Put them in the hands of potentially-ill-managed private operations and we are bound to have a few catastrophic failures... At one point, one of those company will be strapped for cash and they will try to do more with less, pushing those "indestructible engines" beyond what they should do... it's bound to happen.
I'm not against Nuclear energy, but history shows us that they need proper design and maintenance and they also require that the maintainers be independant enough to raise issues when they happen and respected enough to be heard by the authorities, else you get another Chernobyl.
While I love the idea, implementing this in a extremely cost competitive industry (eg cost cutting safety) for such a minor reduction in CO2 doesn't seem worth it. I would rather see MSR tech used for domestic power production where it can have a greater impact.
Why not both?
@@2MeterLP risk. For centralized stations you can have a more dedicated staff while providing power for areas where the general impact would be much greater.
In a shipping industry you have a fight for low rates and a relatively high turnover rate, thus mandating more training. While msr's are safer, it doesn't mean they are without fault.
If one fails on land, the impact is much smaller, while in a ship that gets beaten by storms and potential for introduction into the ocean the effect is much greater in size of area
@@Azivegu MSR's can be designed to be "Failsafe" because the liquid fuel can't melt down like a solid fuel reactors can.
@@LG123ABC fail-safe for sure, but maintenance is still a thing.
Don't confound fail-safe for safe.
@@LG123ABC That considers exactly one failure mode. MSRs introduce a bunch more failure modes that are extremely incompatible with marine environments.
As someone trained to be a nuclear tech in the navy, this just isn't feasible. It takes 2 years to train and it's always understaffed
Thanks for sharing.
There is presently a shortage of commercial airline pilots.
To become a commercial airline pilot, it takes two years to gain the required 1,500 hours flight time.
Maybe we need to stop building airplanes?
Great vid. The way you pronounced Glasgow cracked me up though!
Under different circumstances, nuclear powered ships would have been a logical solution 30 years ago. Currently, we're only a few years away from other more promising technologies taking over.
Facts.. the dangers are not worth it until vessels and entire damage control can be proven by the liars of nuclear sales(radiation in my teeth from fl power plants leaking still)
@@dertythegrower USA, UK, Russia, China, India, and France all all have nuclear subs. This isn’t new or unproven technology.
What are the more promising low emission alternatives?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary. What are these promising technologies that are only a few years away?
What about safety from hijacks? If the “Somali pirates” can easily board and take over tankers, a bit more prep and planning should mean taking over these nuke ships could be done quickly. Then the fear becomes nuclear knowledge theft or planned detonation into a new destination.
or just dirty bombing it. One might not get nuclear criticality explosion out of it, but breach the reactor with conventinal explosives and some more for spreading the internals of the reactor and well one has a dirty bomb.
Ofcourse one can make "oil slick" bomb out of a tanker or so on, but still just because it can't go nuclear kaboom doesn't mean it is risk free. The fuel in itself even without critical mass of it is *nasty poisonous heavy metals laden latently radiactive* material.
So as said it's one thing to sail around on diesel/bunker fuel ship. Another to sail past nation with nuclear reactor and not have that state decide "we want to take a peeksie on that tech, surprise coast guard inspection and detainment". Not to mention as said pirates/hijackers deciding..... they will probably pay pretty penny to get their _nuclear_ container ship back.
Navy nuclear vessels have benefit of having ahemmm it's own security detail along for the cruise.
I'm really hoping someone will drag fusion across the finish line in my life but we must plan as if it's not in the cards and this would make good economic sense. It might be easier to master fusion than to convince people to give newer fission designs a fair shake
I like the idea of large city powering reactor ships off coast that are operated by utility companies. I'm not sure about standard shipping, have you seen what ship breaking yards are like?
Off shore should be used on the west coast of the America's to desalinate sea water, pump it up to the mountains and blow it out of snow guns to create the largest high albedo foot print in the winter. Keep things cool by reflecting it back to space.
Titanic engine ☢️☢️☢️
Nuclear power ship Titanic
Titanic nuclear power ship 🚢
Hi Matt, something made me chuckle. Glasgow is pronounced Glaz-go 🤣
glass cow
Riddle me this..
why do brits call batteries, Bat Trees? 😆 i am the only guy who points this out..
@@dertythegrower Almost, where I live at least, it's bat-riz 😆
@@neils.6674 ehehe
@@dertythegrower the yanks call them badderees, so why dont you have a stab at them lol
This absolutely should be a thing. Btw, I am jealous of your solar set up. I live in an old Victorian house with a slate roof, so yeah
IT brakes and fucks the ocean real hard.
Leaking plant Turkey Point.. fukishima.. US also has sunken lost nuclear devices in the arctic we still havent recovered kid... no, bad idea that will be bad longterm forever... again forever, you cant clean it.. its in my teeth, turkey point plant wastewater in Miami waters now too 🤔
@@dertythegrower That is a very simplistic view of a complex issue. Modern reactors are designed in ways to prevent accidents, and self scram and cool with power loss.
Ugh ... slate roof is tough.
Absolutely fuelling development while we gear up to run this very fine project is a SUPER idea!
Just think; would you have full confidence in the management of a nuclear reactor under the control of an anonymous entity only traceable, perhaps, via a letter box in a FOC (flag of convenience) nation state? If you are, could you sell that confidence to Japan, the state that hosted the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear detonations as well as more recently the Fukushima ‘event’? Then try that same, or a similar, sales strategy on Ukraine, the nation state that as a part of the USSR (CCCP) hosted the Chernobyl ‘event’.
Modern iterations of nuclear energy, thorium fuel, molten salt reactors, small modular reactors or fusion reactors, will carry the legacy of past problems. It is the global trepidation of anything with 'nuclear' in the name and the economics of nuclear having transitioned from 'energy to cheap to charge for' too 'the costs of remediation are incalculable' that will prevent the adoption of nuclear energy as a means of creating energy at sea. Modern reaction systems may have overcome the safety problems but the general public, having been misled in the past, will be reluctant to believe the fresh new promises. The incident of the ‘Ever Given’ blocking the Suez Canal, March 2021, may also have a little to add to this debate. The cooling water on ships tends to get taken in from near the bottom so when running aground the inlets are in a prime spot to get plugged up restricting, if not stopping, the flow of coolant. One thing that the Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents all had in common was that the supply of coolant, or rather disruption thereof, was a fundamental cause. Similarly, and only months later, May 2021, had the ‘X Press Pearl’ been nuclear powered then a major port for a populous nation in the global South would have possible been the site of a significant exclusion zone due to a non-power plant related incident. If the ‘X Press Pearl’ had on board a fired up but ‘safe’ molten salt reactor and found herself having to dissipate the residual energy associated with the possible 12.5 megaWatt power cycle would a stable cool down have been possible? Would there have been sufficient heat energy contained in the power system to facilitate a hydrothermal explosion? In a casualty ships may capsize, like the ‘Karin Hoej’ off of Bornholm in the Baltic early December 2021, in which situation any safety system reliant on gravity might not work. It might also be worth bearing in mind that part of the TMI near miss was the fault of the US navy trained operators focusing on not letting the primary cooling system 'go solid'; due to their training overwhelming their education and the particularity of the situation. The actions of the captain of the 'Costa Concordia', Francesco Schettini, may also be relevant; the consequences of his actions, whether due to ineptitude, an isolated act of incompetence or driven by a corrupt corporate culture, illustrates well one of the dangers of releasing nuclear energy into commercial shipping.
As a second point if you fit 'walk away safe' reactors on ships you will need duplicate drive trains as there are seldom salvage tugs around when you really, really need one. A nuclear ‘dead ship’ drifting around NUC (not under command) would be a disaster waiting to happen and duplicate systems increase expense. Land based nuclear power plants have a few issues but are immobile, stable and usually well regulated. Reactors on ships by their very nature are able to move between regulators, bump into each other and roll over. Regulation of ships by both / either flag state or port state has problems and adding any nuclear regulatory obligations on to those already overstretched facilities would be very taxing for all involved. This is not about 'can it be safe' it is all about 'will it be safe'.
Furthermore, while merchant ships may be 'taken up from trade', as the RN would say, or may be captured or impressed by non-state quasi military entities by way of piracy, cargo ships are not military vessels. They therefore do not have the same inherent level of self-protection and internal discipline. Why not use nukes on merchant ships? It is down to engineering, finance, socio-political attitudes and safety.
Excellent idea! Although there are challenges to bring the technology forward, these are solvable problems. The long term benefits are invaluable
Would you be interested in talking about a possible technology opportunity.
Like pressure plates on sidewalks in busy citys in busy places like the las vages strip or California beaches well the sidewalks that go up to the beach.
Thoughts.
Wow thats clever.. like little seesaw generators for people walking down the street 🤔
too expensive, too little power, too fragile, will probably cost more than it'll produce
@@dertythegrower kinda i was thinking it would sink 1 to 2 inches when you step then when you get off it goes back up.
Mybe not like a seesaw but does sound fun to walk on.
@@thesilentone4024 that sounds like a nightmare for anyone with imperfect balance tbh. 1mm at most would probably be tolerable. Loose paving moving 2-5mm already trips up many people, such as causing older ladies to break their ankle.
@@kaitlyn__L ah yes I forgot the old and imperfect walking some people got lol.
Ya 1 to 2 mm should work.
For some reason I was thinking if kids walked on it I can see them jump to see it drop fast but ya you got a point save the old peoples ankles and mybe pregnant ladies too lol 😆.
An idea that just came to my mind: Floating nuclear reactors which produce hydrogen fuel which the ships use to operate. Would be maybe safer than if every ship has its own reactor.
Way too many extra expenses. The mantainence would be expensive, cost of electrolysers and also the loss of energy because electrolysers aren't 100% efficient.
There's a lot of buts there. First, you will need to multiply the number of reactors in order to compensate for the energy losses. Second, the energy consumption will be even bigger because of the off-track in order to refuel. Plus all the extra carriers in order to bring the hydrogen to the coast because sea platforms may not be possible for everybody.
But yeah, it may be. But knowing overall that fission is not renewable, I would avoid all the energy losses due to use the middle man of hydrogen.
But, it will be totally different if somehow we can convert CO2 into fuel using nuclear energy + water. The oceans are absorbing lots of CO2. It may be interesting to extract CO2 from the oceans, allowing them to absorb even more, and then use the resulting fuel as fuel as we know it. Then, CO2 capture systems would make the fuel even cheaper, helping to reduce the overall CO2 in the atmosphere. Hydrocarbon fuels may be a very good idea.
@@kushalvora7682 Could deffinatly be, yes maintenance on sea is allways on the costly side. I didnt think about the risks eather. Was just a thought i would like to hear others opinion on.
@@BlueFrenzy Combined with CO2 capture systems it might make sence. But thinking about it it may make more sence to just bild it on land and maybe just use renewables. But fun to think about it never the less
Thank you!
Casual Navigation did a video on the logistics of the Savanna and other civilian nuclear powered ships. One of the main reasons they were dropped was simply due to the fact many ports denied them harbor, often officials had to fly months, even years in advance to get pre-approved for dock.
The boomers irrational fear of nuclear has hastened climate change by decades.