>I wonder if anyone has conducted viability studies re: utilizing the same power mechanisms that fuel the sub props for those super-tankers (genuinely not sure - if anyone has more information, hit Reply).
They didn't just do a study, they actually built a nuclear-powered cargo/passenger ship many years ago, called the NS Savannah. It was a commercial failure. That's not the only nuclear-powered merchant ship built; Germany built an ore-carrying ship, and it only ran for 9 years. Japan built one too, and it was a failure on its first voyage.
The second article here thinks the Savannah was doomed by other factors, and tries to argue that maybe nuclear-powered merchant ships should be tried again, but there's a lot of problems with the idea. Past ships had problems with radioactive waste being dumped into the sea (which caused fishermen to refuse to allow the Japanese ship to even dock). It takes a lot more crew to staff a nuclear ship, and they have to be highly trained. They'd probably be a terrorist target. The shipping industry (maintenance, etc.) isn't set up to handle nuclear commercial ships. The insurance would be prohibitive. Overall, it's really questionable whether it'd make economic sense to have nuclear-powered commercial ships.
They didn't just do a study, they actually built a nuclear-powered cargo/passenger ship many years ago, called the NS Savannah. It was a commercial failure. That's not the only nuclear-powered merchant ship built; Germany built an ore-carrying ship, and it only ran for 9 years. Japan built one too, and it was a failure on its first voyage.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah [2] https://www.flexport.com/blog/nuclear-powered-cargo-ships/
The second article here thinks the Savannah was doomed by other factors, and tries to argue that maybe nuclear-powered merchant ships should be tried again, but there's a lot of problems with the idea. Past ships had problems with radioactive waste being dumped into the sea (which caused fishermen to refuse to allow the Japanese ship to even dock). It takes a lot more crew to staff a nuclear ship, and they have to be highly trained. They'd probably be a terrorist target. The shipping industry (maintenance, etc.) isn't set up to handle nuclear commercial ships. The insurance would be prohibitive. Overall, it's really questionable whether it'd make economic sense to have nuclear-powered commercial ships.