Nuclear Freighters and Liners

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A review of the experience.

 

Reactor technology has changed radically since these experiments.  As a sop to the CO₂ emission haters, could this now be an answer?  Especially oil-based guzzling aircraft?

[Easy Bakes 253]

Interesting historical story.

not a bad idea for Nuclear cargo ships but not sure its a viable solution with the huge number of cargo ships out there.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Consider replacing the engines and fuel tanks with a small nuke and I think there might be a space advantage, ergo more cargo space. 

 

The initial cost might be high, but maintenance is almost negligible.  Some retraining of the black gang would also be needed, and a lay up may not suit the owner's short term goals.  It would have to be a fairly quick conversion.

[Odainsaker 2,135]

It sounds like a security nightmare...I would not be routing these past Somalia or Pakistan or through the Moluccas or Suez. It would seemingly fulfill the fear of an easily hijackable dirty bomb ready to be internationally ransomed, or worse, repainted and sailed into a busy American or European port.

Actually, even typical storms on the high seas or even striking a port could pose a new enviromental threat, as we already lose non-nuclear freighters on a regular basis.

I recall the U.S. and U.S.S.R. tried nuclear-powered bombers, complete with cockpits shielded with heavy lead and water tanks. The potential accidental hazards from those seem too obvious now.

[hym 358]

As a sop to the CO₂ emission haters, could this now be an answer?  Especially oil-based guzzling aircraft?

 

Unlikely.  A much cheaper and more effective proposal for decreasing emissions from cargo ships is to increase the refining of the fuel that they use.  We have the technology and most of the infrastructure necessary to do this, but it hasn't been done because none of the major producing countries have instituted regulation forcing it to happen.

 

As for the airliners, we are hard at work developing synthetic jet fuel and production techniques to ensure that we will never have to find another fuel source for aircraft.  ExxonMobil seriously expects to have economical synthetic oil production in the next few decades.

[GMT 389]

 Especially oil-based guzzling aircraft?

 

As a matter of fact, considering actually widespread actions taken and not just some prototype bull, no other fuel-driven means of transportation has made such an immense cut on engine-thirst in the last almost half a century as aviation has. we're talking maximum cuts of almost 40% in the last 25 years alone and plenty to come because for all carriers, fuel prices are in terms of operating costs created only second to crew costs. these two, depending on the actual airline can easily make up for as much 75% of the costs. I mean, only a few decades ago we were talking costs of $1 per gallon jet-a or even less, and now we look at about $5-6 (Phoenix area @ Cutter Av.) and another dollar more for Avgas (which is used in general aviation propeller driven AC and is basically your 100 octane gasoline but blended to accomodate for the higher altitudes).

Also, at least commercial aviation, is a public transport method. thinking of it like this, broken down to the per capita gallon-milage is by far the best you can get from combustion engines.

Another matter of fact, russian military propeller-driven aircraft in the post-ww2 era have been experimentally stocked with nuclear reactors. went pretty well until someone realized that this creates thousands upon thousands of Fat Mans and Little Boys in the sky and that it's only a matter of time until a real disaster kicks in.

 

If we really want to get rid of oil-guzzlers and corresponding pollution, attack ships.

they burn only rarely refined oils with little to no exhaust filtering. That's really a problem both in crude oil consumption and pollution.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The security problem is surely no greater than some fool wanting to blow up an oil-fuelled ship to cause a massive oil spill.  The problem will be with initial ships which will become "sweet" targets until the terrorists find out that you can't do much with plain old U²³⁸.  Enriched Uranium reactors are not needed any more.

 

As for the airlines, one of the most economic things they could do is replace ocean liners with dirigible airships for people who are not in a blazing rush to get somewhere.  If it hadn't been for the Hindenburg disaster, I think we'd still have them.  How one would fuel the air-screws or whether these would be replaced by jet engines is a question.

 

It is about time that people got over their nuclear cafard, eh?  Not all nuclear devices can be made to explode, even if you try.  Most of them just fizzle and the reaction dies.

[GMT 389]

Of course you can't blow up everything nuclear, but the radioactivity persists and can be hazardous, intentionally or accidentally spilled. An oil spill can be contained but you can't contain a fallout that easy as it contaminates everything it touches and therefore easily mixes, unlike crude oil which to the biggest extent floats and "just" sticks to everything. Just imagine what would've happened if the Clipper Maid of the Seas was a nuclear-powered aircraft or MH17. It wouldn't come down to a disaster like real nukes are, but for sure to the same extent the dreaded "dirty bombs" are.

And, what also was a point for quitting afore mentioned experiments, how to shield the crew or even passengers effectively from the radiation? Mass is a big factor in aviation and effective radioactive shielding is darn heavy.

 

And what about the waste disposal? If I take a look at how careless nuclear waste from the powerplants is treated even today, I don't really wanna know what happens if this stuff is turned into an acceptable means of transportation fuel.

[Duke87 1,070]

It's a nice thought.

 

Unfortunately the risk of environmental incidents being caused by a nuclear ship leaking radioactive material are enough to grind the idea to a halt. As is the specter of terrorists or shady foreign governments getting their hands on it.

 

The military can do it because on a military ship there is inherently a lot of security and they take safety very seriously. Civilian vessels meanwhile would most likely look to provision for these two concerns as little as they can get away with in order to increase profitability. You cannot rely on a private company to keep a nuclear reactor on a ship well-maintained and well-guarded, especially not a private company in an industry that isn't used to worrying about such things since they don't typically face much in the way of crime out on the high seas. That takes military grade discipline.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

As usual, fear overrules common sense.

[hym 358]

Out of curiosity, where would one find the people qualified to service such systems?  Nuclear systems tend to be highly specialized and require well-trained, highly intelligent individuals to provide necessary technical support.  There are so few training opportunities that most major nuclear users (such as power plants and the US Navy) have been forced to develop their own training programs.  Once one gets the training and a good reputation, these folks are nearly impossible to find on the open market.  (Good technicians with experience on US nuclear attack subs can be sucked back off the job market within hours of their military discharge.)

 

Nuclear engineers, if needed, are even harder to find.  In fact, it is so difficult to find graduates with nuclear engineering degrees that the US nuclear power industry doesn't even bother trying to find them.  They take engineering graduates who have degrees in fields like chemical, electrical, or civil engineering and train them to be nuclear engineers.

 

How exactly is a shipping company going to compete in this kind of job market and get competent people?

[MushyMushy 3,618]

I can't really see how one can be against nuclear reactors in regular vessels, but can be alright with them being in military warships. Warships. Say one of those nuclear-powered aircraft carriers was bombarded with missiles, bombs, torpedoes, or something of the like? If one of the explosions occurred near the reactor, I doubt the result would be pretty - some sort of radiation leak or something like that. I would feel better about commercial vessels running on reactors because in the event that there was a major war on the planet that involved the seas, those commercial ships would likely be sitting in port due to trade being halted. Aircraft carriers and submarines, on the other hand, would be out in the heat of battle getting fired at.

 

And to those who think nuclear reactors are nuclear bombs, that is entirely false, as Nonny said.

 

Despite the argument I made above, I'm honestly against any ships using nuclear reactors until we can come up with an effective way to contain a full blown nuclear meltdown. If a ship at sea were to suffer a nuclear meltdown, the radioactive fallout would be devastating to the marine ecosystem in the area. I am totally fine with onshore nuclear fission power plants, although keeping them away from the oceans and populated areas would be preferrable.

[GMT 389]

As usual, fear overrules common sense.

 

I wouldn' call it fear, I'd call it skeptisism. Common sense shows that there's just a lot of questions - that inevitably include safety/security - that have to be considered and not few aren't even answered for powerplants yet. Especially if you wanna get civillians within an arms length of small reactors powering ships or aircraft. Nuclear power is an extremly complex way of producing energy and frankly, it's anything but clean.

[flatron 83]

Nuclear power is neither cheap, nor safe, nor good for the environment. There are much more sustainable options available(We'll run out of uranium in a few decades anyway)

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There are lots of other fissionables around mouldering in spent fuel dumps all for lack of the will to refine them.  Uranium isn't the only fuel.  We could even start up some fast breeders and use Plutonium.  A little tricky because Pu is an active poison as well as hotter than the middle tail race of Hades.

 

@hym: You are making a very good case for a new industry.  If Nuclear Power Engineering was more than a branch of Physics and Electrical Engineering, that would be in keeping with a new industrial revolution.  Why not?  We have to do something will all that unemployed youth everyone is yelling about.  If we stick to traditional industries and such, we will stop advancing.  Things that stop advancing usually die out.