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In general, I agree with the idea that it's better when we can buy things closer to the point of production, and buy less stuff from overseas. However, there will likely always be at least some need for overseas transport involving very large cargo ships.

This might sound like a really crazy bad idea, but many ideas when they are first considered, seem crazy bad, until people figure out how to make them NOT be bad, but. . .

Perhaps it's time we revisited the idea of the commercial nuclear ship? For small boats, you'll likely never be able to safely power them with nuclear power, but it seems to me that very large cargo ships would be almost ideal candidates for nuclear propulsion. The question, really, is can we make nuclear propulsion systems that a) are extremely safe during normal operation, b) don't become dangerous in an accident/ship sinking scenario or a bombing, etc [wouldn't want to pollute any ports or the ocean at large, with radioactive material, and c) are highly resistant to having fuel 'diverted' for nefarious purposes?

I'm no expert, so I don't know if it would be possible to create a 'completely safe' nuclear propulsion system for commercial use or not, but it sure seems like it would be worth spending some money on R&D to try to figure it out - nuclear would seem to be the only energy source which at least *possibly* might be able to be virtually 'air/water pollution free'.

I got to thinking about this because I recently came across the website for a guy proposing an approach to nuclear propulsion for ships which he thinks is safe enough for civilian commercial use - basically, if I understand his site correctly, he wants to use PBMRs (Pebble Bed Modular Reactors) to heat inert nitrogen gas (you know, nitrogen which is 78% of what air is made of), and use the pressure of the heated nitrogen gas to drive a gas turbine to provide propulsion and electricity generation. PBMRs seem like they might be a safe enough design to perhaps consider for use in civilian applications like large ships.

The site is Adams Atomic Engines. I have no affiliation with Adams Atomic Engines - I just thought it looked like an interesting concept, and could perhaps really clean up commercial cargo ships.

Go Nuke. They did it once http://www.atomicengines.com/ships.html, but made it more of a 'show' boat than a work horse.

* The Savannah was designed as a showboat. Her purpose was to demonstrate American technology as part of the "Atoms for Peace" program. Pretty lines and luxurious staterooms were more important than cargo capacity or loading ease.
* She made politically motivated port calls, not economically motivated ones.
* She was a one of a kind ship, required to support a specialized infrastructure by herself.
* There were some difficulties with union negotiations. She spent almost a year tied to the pier because of the deck officers did not want the engineers to make more money than they did.

With the air craft carriers no one seems to have a NIMBY problem. You could move quite a bit of cargo with a few lbs of uranium.

So it'll require hiring some more staff (Like an actual engineer and maybe some armed guards). The US Navy has managed to not have any nuclear powered vessel captured by pirates.

Heck I wouldn't have a huge problem if the US Government wanted to own and operate a super-super cargo ship if it ran on Nuclear energy. The amount of oil those ships burn is measured in thousands of gallons per mile.

Why not just go nuclear? We could eliminate CO2 and increase the speed by 2x over diesel.

...what part of the phrase "Piracy in Somalia" is unfamiliar to you?

Why not just go nuclear? We could eliminate CO2 and increase the speed by 2x over diesel.

WRT my commute - my wife's commute is less than 5 miles. Rather than splitting the distance, we gave me a long one and her a short one. At least my car gets about 47 MPG year round. I keep pressing for telecommuting.

Why is it rational for profitable companies to ask for subsidies? Government funds imply government control - if you have the right answer, you do not need governments to approve or fund it.

The analysis about oil prices versus nuclear production uses the law of supply and demand and historical figures. Plenty of people disagree, but the numbers are there for the asking.

Please tell me how nuclear power stations are subsidized when compared to coal. As an Australian with no nuclear power stations operating in your country, you might not be aware of the economic computations that show that nuclear power is about 20% less expensive than coal using prices from two years ago, and several times cheaper than oil or natural gas.

Rod Adams
President, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.

I love riding my bike, but I cannot take my family to the movies on it. I also would have trouble with my 43 mile commute along a remote access freeway and into a major city, even though I am in pretty decent shape. My wife's lightly driven midsized (non subsidized) SUV serves a purpose, my diesel Jetta serves a different purpose and my bicycle serves a third purpose.

Here is the connection between oil and nuclear power. In 1970, soon after the US began building nuclear power plants, but before they had much market penetration, about 18% of the electricity in the country was produced by burning oil. Now, nuclear power plants produce the equivalent of about 4 million barrels of oil per day in the US and we use almost no oil for power generation. We do, however still use a lot of natural gas for both electricity and space heating (which is easy to do with electricity), we run a lot of trains on diesel power when they could use electricity and we burn a lot of fuel oil directly for heat. There is also a similar story if you look internationally to France, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Worldwide, despite focused opposition, nuclear power has grown from nearly zero in 1970 to producing the equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil per day. In other words, it has captured about 33% more of the energy market than Saudi Arabian oil (about 9 million barrels of oil per day.) That growth in nuclear energy production (vice "capacity" as people like to talk about with regard to wind and solar) has had a huge impact on oil markets. Remember how nice it was to have cheap oil for about 15 years staring in about 1985 and lasting through 2000? That same period can be related to a growth in nuclear energy production at the rate of about 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent each year. Since then, nuclear power growth has flattened out, and you all should know what has happened to the price of oil.

If wind can compete without subsidies, what do you call the 1.8 US dollar cents per kilowatt hour Production Tax Credit that wind suppliers like GE claim they cannot do without? I hate subsidies, too, and simply wish that the federal government would reevaluate its demand that I pay the NRC a $250,000 application fee, a license review fee of $208.00 per bureaucrat hour for the privilege of having them take a fine toothed comb through about 15 years worth of design effort, and an annual fee of XXX for the maintenance of the license. Not only are the fees pretty steep, but the NRC also estimates that it will take them about 5 years to review our application once it is filed. (We have not yet filed, the expense clock begins ticking quite rapidly so we need a bit more time to prepare before we take that step.)

Some of our potential competitors in the nuclear business love subsidies, but that is not because they are nuclear companies. It is because they are huge, well-connected companies that have always asked taxpayers to help them produce their products and innovations. GE's nuclear business is about 20% of their Power Systems division, which is only about 20% of their overall revenue. I think last year their subsidized wind business was larger.

Rod Adams
President, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.

The reason that most nuclear plants are designed to operate at full power is because they can do that very economically. It is kind of like the old "why does a dog lick . . ." joke. When you have a very low fuel cost and get paid based on the quantity of electricity that you produce, you produce as much as you can.

Those windmills in sparsely populated areas intrigue me. Are there roads already built to allow access to the sites? If not, how long with that take and how much will it cost? Is there already a network of wires and transformers to collect the power and make it ready for the transmission system? Is there a transmission system nearby? Does it have excess capacity for carrying the power? What do you call the 1.8 cent per kilowatt-hour Production Tax Credit if it is not a subsidy? Who is collecting the decommissioning funds for wind farms, or will we all be stuck with the bill for tearing down the towers once the mechanical sections wear out?

Darn - I hate sounding like a wind FUD spreading nuclear zealot, but the fact is that there are a lot of reasonable questions that need understanding before thinking that wind is going to solve all of our energy supply problems. There are plenty of good reasons why farmers were excited by electricity in the 1930s even though they already had windmills and why sailing is a hobby, not an industrial way of moving goods from place to place.

Rod Adams
President, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.

Sodium is not well suited for shipboard use, and steam plants have safety, cost and complexity concerns that Adams Engines are designed to avoid. Our systems are certainly not "perfect" but we think they will meet the needs and demands of a number of different customers.

The waste issue is one worth addressing, but it requires a rather complicated analysis. I attempted to simplify some of our responses to the concerns on a recent blog post at Atomic Insights Blog. Look for the post titled "Do pebble bed reactors produce "more" waste? Please feel free to come and discuss the issue.

Rod Adams
President, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.