Cutting edge technology is always risky to use. And therefore it was not certain what would happen when on May 22, 1819 the SS Savannah began a three week journey across the Atlantic, becoming the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic. The Savannah was equipped with sails and only used its boilers for eighty hours during the crossing. During its twenty five days stay in Liverpool the ship and crew were celebrities and were visited by thousands including influential members of the British government and Roayl Navy. Upon its return to the US from its journey, the fate of the Savannah was not happy. Unable to make a profit, the ship was converted to sails only, and was broken up after running aground on Long Island on November 5, 1821. However, the fact remains that the Savannah blazed a path. Regular steam ship traffic across the Atlantic would not occur for another twenty years. Her legacy was remembered in 1959 when the first nuclear powered merchant vessel bore the name Savannah.
What I would have given to have been a reactor operator on the NS Savannah!
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http://www.nssavannah.net/
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Just imagine all the diesel fuel that could be saved by converting ship to nuclear propulsion. If the US Navy can do it successfully, then why not the merchant fleet? I suspect fossil fuel interests have much to do with nuclear energy being abandoned for merchant ship propulsion and with all the recent shutdowns of commercial nuclear power plants whose electrical generation capacity is being replaced by natural gas. A five year glut in fossil fuel supply will run out, and then watch what happens.
A few years ago I attended a lecture by John Laurence Busch, the author of Steam Coffin, a history of the Savannah. He maintains a web site at http://www.steamcoffin.com/sc/Home.html
which is very informative. His most recent blog posting regards the impact of the introduction of steam technology on fishermen. Take a look.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Lucius. Given the safety precautions required with nuclear anything, I question it being a cost-effective approach. Using a nuclear powerplant aboard-ship makes sense for the Navy; they’re expecting to be at sea for months at a time. A cargo ship, not so much.
I’ve watched YouTube videos about on-land nuclear power plants being an iffy proposition too. Regulations, politics, and safety for nuclear concerns cost a great deal. Building and operating a natural gas or coal plant can often be much more cost-effective, even if the price of gas or coal rises significantly.
@ John Flaherty, it s amazing to me that an industry like petrochemicals which has killed and injured an untold myriad of people lacks the safety protocols that nuclear has. The one form of energy generation having the LOWEST mortality rate per terawatt hour is NUCLEAR. When considering the toxic impact of air pollution from fossil fuel, there is no comparison. And nuclear safe enough for a 19 year old to operate a reactor on a submarine at 1000 feet beneath the surface.
Oh, lest I forget, here is the case of nuclear cargo ships:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-powered-cargo-ship
And here is a company working on making maritime nuclear propulsion a reality:
https://www.corepower.energy/maritime-applications/nuclear-propulsion
We need to stop burning fossil fuels and playing with useless, worthless so-called renewable energy, and transition to a completely nuclear economy. Hydrogen from nuclear could fuel our cars, trucks, and planes. Trains could be electrified with nuclear as the supply. Shipping could all be nuclear. And the grid all nuclear. No air pollution. And all the spent fuel could be recycled and consumed in fast neutron burner reactors. We have the technology to do this, and doing it will save MILLIONS of lives and provide increased prosperity to all. But it’s always easier to be a cave man and burn with fire than follow regulations to safely use the energy of the atom.
It seems to me that a seagoing nuclear reactor would require a well-armed and highly trained crew to protect it from pirates and others who would seek to acquire one for malevolent purposes.
CAG, why don’t we protect massive oil and natural gas containers from pirates with the same level of security as what you propose for nuclear powered ships? One oil spill has enormous environmental devastation, and an explosion of a ship containing methane gas in a harbor would destroy the city where it is moored. What can a terrorist do to a nuclear ship that will be worse than the destruction of Boston harbor by the detonation of a methane transport ship? THINK, people, THINK! Fossil fuel is FAR more dangerous than nuclear.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fossil-fuels-a-legacy-of-disaster/
“Fossil fuel is FAR more dangerous than nuclear.”
I get it LQC but think about this …I could conceal a few pounds of fissile material a lot easier than a tanker full of oil.
I’m no expert in radioactive stuff, but I bet terrorists would prefer to purchase the former rather than the latter.
CAG, the fissile material in maritime reactors will be 20% enriched U-235 or less. 92+% enrichment is required to make a bomb.
Furthermore, all the fissile material is encased in a massive reactor pressure vessel under 2000 psig of pressure that is very difficult to breach, and if breached, the resulting steam explosion from depressurized superheated water would kill the terrorists trying to do something nefarious.
By contrast, one small, easily concealed chemical bomb on a liquid gas tanker could destroy an entire city harbor and surrounding environs. A bomb on a nuclear powered ship would make a heck of a mess, but even the Thresher and Scorpion disasters of the 60s show no significant radioactive leakage from the reactors of those doomed submarines even after all these years.
It’s all about the boogeyman of radiation, radioactivity, nuclear, etc. Go browse this web site. Here are where the real hazards exist:
https://www.csb.gov/
Here is a whole slew of videos on hazards that never make the public eye because they aren’t nuclear:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1JcDabHyU6AWKnErQrhd8Frdu1MMPhoZ
A terrorist attacking a nuclear powered ship will get himself killed. A terrorist attacking an oil tanker or a methane transport ship can cause real environmental damage and loss of life.
Oh, I forgot to mention anything about security. 10 CFR 73.55 is the guiding regulation on requirements for physical protection of licensed activities in nuclear power reactors against radiological sabotage.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part073/part073-0055.html
Commercial nuclear power plants have extensive physical protection systems (on which I worked during my days as an I&C technician) as well as a robust, armed, and well trained security guard force which does routine one on one force exercises with the FBI and the National Guard. I imagine that the US NRC will require similar protections for maritime ships powered by reactors that are US-registered. You have NO idea what physical security is like at a commercial reactor (it’s like walking into the State Penitentiary), and similar protections for nuclear powered ships will be no less.
CAG has mentioned terrorist attack and the US NRC takes that very seriously. When you can say that you’ve worked on restoring the electronic fence protection system at a commercial nuclear reactor in a 20 F snow blizzard off the Hudson River, then come to me with your opinion. Until then, no sir, you don’t rate an opinion. I got 50 years of experience working on bomb detectors, metal detectors, x-ray machines, video camera systems, biometrics, security access computers, etc. ad nauseam (as well as reactor protection systems, engineered safeguards systems, turbine generator control systems, feedwater control systems, etc.). I am NOT bragging because the truth isn’t braggadocio.
And yes, NOTHING will EVER be either 100% safe or 100% secure, but nuclear beats all the rest hands down. No chemical or petroleum facility has security like that used in nuclear power. Can a terrorist do something horrible? You bet, and more likely that would be at a hydro-electric dam or one of those chemical tanks off I-95 in New Jersey than any nuke plant or nuke ship.
Well, actually I wasn’t thinking about a bomb … more along the lines of contaminating a water supply or something, but if the material is that difficult to get to, I guess it’s a moot point.
Thanks for the reassurance, LQC.
“Commercial nuclear power plants have extensive physical protection systems (on which I worked during my days as an I&C technician) as well as a robust, armed, and well trained security guard force which does routine one on one force exercises with the FBI and the National Guard.”
True story:
I was surveying the cooling canal system for a nuclear reactor a number of years ago and my union chaperone (a living breathing Homer Simpson) didn’t show up on the last day. I dragged my equipment under a fence and completed the survey without incident.
… During the course of the survey, one of the guards lost his M-16 … left it by a vending machine, and when he remembered and went back to get it, it was gone.
Now, this was pre-9/11 … I have to hope their security has improved since then. They have repaired the breech in the chain link fence.
A few other things. Do you really think that a pirate terrorist can sneak aboard a nuclear powered ship and steal a few pounds of U-235 or Pu-239? Do you NOT understand that all the nuclear fuel is in fuel rods in a huge reactor pressure vessel pressurized to 2000 psig, and that as soon as the reactor is first started up (i.e., goes critical for the first time), all that fuel is now radioactive, and even IF someone did manage to somehow miraculously get in contact with the irradiated U-235 or Pu-239, the gamma radiation would kill him deader than a door nail, but not instantly. It would be a horrible death and you’d be vomiting the whole time while dying.
And here’s some NUREGs on security for commercial reactors. Shipboard reactors would have analogous security. The Engineering spaces would be biometric and password dual authentication access only.
NUREG-2166, Physical Security Best Practices for the Protection of Risk-Significant Radioactive Material
NUREG-1959, Intrusion Detection Systems and Subsystems: Technical Information for NRC Licensees
NUREG-1964, Access Control Systems: Technical Information for NRC Licensees
And here you can go and get all the Regulatory Guides by drilling down:
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/reg-guides/protection/rg/index.html
You guys have NO idea the level of regulatory scrutiny that shipboard nuclear propulsion systems will result in.
“Do you NOT understand that all the nuclear fuel is in fuel rods in a huge reactor pressure vessel pressurized to 2000 psig”
No, of course I don’t! 😀 I’ve already said I’m not a nuclear expert. I’m a land surveyor. For all I know extra fuel rods are stored somewhere on the ship.
But I bet blowing up that pressurized reactor would cause a mess.
So would blowing up a dam, or a chlorine chemical plant, or a petrochemical plant, or how about the Megantic teain disaster in 2013? If you’re reason against nuclear propulsion is fear, then why aren’t you afraid of a bomb on a methane container ship, CAG?
So far this is my favorite Executive Order from our President – ORDERING THE REFORM OF THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ordering-the-reform-of-the-nuclear-regulatory-commission/
I hope to God that we will have nuclear powered ships, an abundance of nuclear generating stations, and that fossil energy will get displaced by nuclear regardless of all the people out there motivated by fear of what they don’t understand. There is enough thorium and uranium to power our civilization for millenia on end with no pollution, and it runs 24 / 7 / 365.
I’m not trying to argue with you LQC, but if you honestly want to know why some people are more apprehensive about nuclear energy than fossil fuels, I think I can illustrate with a simple comparison.
The Deepwater Horizen spilled over 130,000,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of America … That’s like 17,000 tankers worth, but it was cleaned up in less that 4 years.
The half-life of U-235 is over 700,000,000 years. That’s a lot of potential for long-term damage.
But I hear Three Mile Island is going to re-start after 50 years. So, there’s that.
CAG, you truly don’t know nuclear.
“The half-life of U-235 is over 700,000,000 years. That’s a lot of potential for long-term damage.”
The half-life of Uranium-235 (U-235) is 703.8 million years. It’s a law of physics that if half life is very long, radiation energy is very small. It is an alpha emitter (4.679 MeV). BTW, do you know what the four forms of ionizing radiation are?. Alpha is the least penetrating and not a hazard unless uranium dust is inhaled or ingested (so don’t go eating uranium). I have held an unirradiated uranium fuel pellet in my hands. I still live and breath and pee and poop. But don’t hold an irradiated pellet in your hands because of the decay of fission products. That’s one reason why you can’t use reactor fuel to make a bomb. But PWR and BWR used fuel can easily be used in fast neutron burner reactors.
“But I hear Three Mile Island is going to re-start after 50 years. So, there’s that.”
The TMI-2 reactor had an accident in 1978 because the operators didn’t believe their indications. Despite that, no member of the public was injured or killed. In fact, no plant employee was injured or killed. Reactor containment worked. TMI-1 continued to operate until shutdown in 2019. Then interest in powering artificial intelligence started and TMI-1 is slated for refurbishment and restart.
Anti-nuclear ignorance is so embarrassing. The environmental impact of the Deep Water Horizons oil disaster, the Exxon Valdez disaster, and the myriad other fossil fuel disasters never ever go away. The mortality rate per terawatt hour of electric generation from nuclear is lower than ALL the rest – hydro, coal, oil, gas, wind, etc. That’s a FACT. Period.
Bottom line: under President Trump anti-nuclear idiots don’t get the make the rules any longer. The US NRC is being reined in. Regulatory strangulation caused but stupid fears and disinformation like yours, CAG, is being stopped. I got 50 years of experience compared to anti-nuclear ignorance. That’s all that matters.
BTW, coal ash is more radioactive than what a nuke plant is permitted to release:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
And drilling / fracking for oil and gas releases naturally occurring radioactive gasses and particulates.
So stop with your fear of radiation. You and I are going to die, and it won’t be from radiation.
LQC, you don’t seem to be self-aware enough to recognize your own (extreme) bias. People can disagree with you without being stupid, or even ignorant. Personally, I think 700 million years is a long time to wait for a potentially deadly contamination to be reduced by half. Honestly, at that point we can just ask our Lord to clean it up since the Parousia will most certainly have happened by then.
I’m also not of the belief that CO2 emissions are a deadly environmental poison which will destroy the planet.
“coal ash is more radioactive than what a nuke plant is permitted to release”
The key word there is ‘permitted’. Sometimes more is released than is ‘permitted’.
Are you aware of any of the troubles that have occurred at the Savannah River plant?
I have explained to you time and time again, CAG. There is no debate against invincible ignorance. Thankfully, people like you don’t get to make these decisions. I am done arguing with you. I am a nuclear engineer. You’re not. As a nuclear engineer, I know the pitiful amount of radiation from uranium pales in comparison to the toxic hazards of fossil fuel. BTW, background radiation in Ramsar Iran exceeds anything you get from uranium. See attached chart. However, I don’t expect to convince you. But I take solace that in Trump’s Executive Orders, people like you are defeated. Good bye.
Locking down this thread folks. Beats me how a thread on a steam ship got onto this byway. Everyone remember that we debate issues here and not personalities.