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Chapter 16.
Nuclear Civilian Ships
(And Nuclear Airplanes?)

Part  1:  Civilian nuclear ships.  The rivers and canals of the world could easily use 10,000 nuclear powered barge tugs.
Part  2:  Air transportation.  - Not as long as reactors need radiation isolation.  - - JH
 

News Items

Part  1:

("Mininuke" - Think about the small reactors being used to power aircraft carriers and submarines.  Submarine reactor cores are the size of a desk.)

US Researchers Raise Alarm Over Commercial Vessels' Pollution. The AP (3/30) reported, "U.S. researchers say commercial vessels on the ocean are causing enough air pollution to cause 'a significant health concern' for coastal communities." They say that "diesel engines aboard freighters, tankers and cruise ships are producing as much pollution as 300 million cars - about half the world's cars."  The oil is the dirtiest type: Bunker oil, which makes this particulate pollution on only 9% of the world's oil.  -- All large ocean-going ships could and should have nuclear engines.

Some civilian ocean-going nuclear ships:

Commercial Nuclear Ships .pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_ships 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah  U.S. Freighter

Within the larger containment vessel, the reactor itself was housed within a "primary shield." This shield was a water-filled, 17' high, 2" to 4" thick lead tank. The reactor's active core was a circular right cylinder 62" in diameter and 66" high. The core was made up of 32 fuel elements. Each fuel element comprised 164 stainless steel fuel rods, .5" in diameter. The rods contained uranium oxide pellets, enriched to an average of 4.4 percent of U-235. The fuel rods in the centermost 16 fuel elements contained uranium oxide at an enrichment of 4.2 percent U-235, and in the outer 16 fuel elements the enrichment was 4.6 percent U-235. This compares to the longer lasting, 90 percent enriched uranium used in Navy reactors. Savannah's uranium oxide pellets, were .4255" in diameter, and the space between the pellets and the inner tube wall contained helium gas under pressure to assure good heat transfer across the fuel rod.  -- Rod Adams       (Right) U.S. NS Savannah

On-line tour of the NS Savannah:  http://www.hnsa.org/savannah/   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Hahn_(ship)_  German Freighter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutsu_(ship)_  Japanese Freighter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput  Russian Freighter

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_(nuclear_icebreaker)_  Russian Ice Breaker

http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/eclipse_2008/S006.html  Inside a Russian Ice Breaker

Nuclear ship propulsion technology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Naval_reactors 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_reactor 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Reactors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Nuclear_Power_School

Russian floating nuclear dual 70-megawatt electrical power station:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station   
Russia to build floating Arctic nuclear stations.pdf
Russia will build floating nuclear power plants.pdf

Claimed to be big enough to power a city of 200,000 and a heat source for a 64 million gallon per day sea water desalination facility.

Reactor on a barge.  Russian commercial product.

Combination nuclear power generation and desalination units.

 

NEWS ITEMS       

The first floating nuclear power plant, the Academician Lomonosov, is under construction at Saint Petersburg. The vessel for the plant was launched in July, 2010, while the components of the reactors and power system remain to be fitted. It will be towed to Vilyuchinsk in Russia's far east to serve the remote town's energy needs.

The two reactors on board will be KLT-40S units similar to those used in Russia's nuclear-powered naval and icebreaker fleets. China already operates nuclear-powered naval vessels and is considered the leading candidate to return nuclear power to civil fleets, where it has all but died out. Russia's icebreakers are the only example of civil nuclear power at sea, but concerns over greenhouse gas emissions have revived interest in specialist nuclear-powered vessels, for example to carry mineral ore in bulk.
  
Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

Modern Cargo Ships Slow to the Speed of the Sailing Clippers. By John Vidal, Guardian (UK), July 25, 2010. "The world's largest cargo ships are travelling at lower speeds today than sailing clippers such as the Cutty Sark did more than 130 years ago. A combination of the recession and growing awareness in the shipping industry about climate change emissions encouraged many ship owners to adopt 'slow steaming' to save fuel two years ago. This lowered speeds from the standard 25 knots to 20 knots, but many major companies have now taken this a stage further by adopting 'super-slow steaming' at speeds of 12 knots (about 14mph). Travel times between the US and China, or between Australia and Europe, are now comparable to those of the great age of sail in the 19th century. American clippers reached 14 to 17 knots in the 1850s, with the fastest recording speeds of 22 knots or more. Maersk, the world's largest shipping line, with more than 600 ships, has adapted its giant marine diesel engines to travel at super-slow speeds without suffering damage. This reduces fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 30%. It is believed that the company has saved more than £65m on fuel since it began its go-slow."

 

China looks at nuclear-powered cargo ships

04 December 2009

[Seatrade Asia Online, 2 December] The head of Chinese shipping giant Cosco has suggested that container ships should be powered by nuclear reactors in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, said to account for 4% of the global total. Shipping companies have gradually been introducing 'super slow steaming', a measure designed to cut fuel consumption and substantially reduce emissions by running engines at very low speed. However, Wei Jiafu, Cosco's president and CEO, speaking at the Senior Maritime Forum of the China International Maritime Exhibition (Marintec China) in Shanghai, said that introducing nuclear-powered ships could be an even cleaner solution. He said, "As they are already onboard submarines, why not cargo ships?" He said that Cosco is in talks with China's nuclear authority to develop nuclear powered freight vessels.

Part  2:

Nuclear Airplanes?

We actually flew a reactor in a B-36.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_aircraft     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_X-6   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_J47#Nuclear-powered_version_-_The_X39    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X211