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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That's a non-proliferation issue more than anything else.

Is it? Nuclear powered warships aren't as common as people think. There are only 12 nuclear powered carriers in the World and the US has 11 of them. I think if it were a no-brainer and "easy" (to install, maintain, safely operate) on container ships, it would be done by now. Or at very least you'd see more carriers operated by countries with nuclear capabilities. That the Russians don't operate a nuclear powered carrier says something (not sure what, but I think it indicts the complexity, reliability, etc).

EDIT: For those interested, here is some great reading on the history and state of marine nuclear propulsion. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nucl...

Don't the Russians run nuclear-powered icebreakers?

Evidently. Including one container ship with an ice-breaking bow. From Wikipedia: "Nuclear-powered icebreakers are much more powerful than their diesel-powered counterparts, and although nuclear propulsion is expensive to install and maintain, very heavy fuel demands and limitations on range, compounded with the difficulty of refueling in the Arctic region, can make diesel vessels less practical and economical overall for these ice-breaking duties."

No doubt that fossil fuels present an attractive option with their energy density and relative simplicity insofar as shipping in more temperate zones is concerned. Seems to get back to the question of incentives - short of artificially increasing the immediate cost of fossil fuels (and all downstream containerized goods) it may be challenging to adopt nuclear or renewables in the global shipping industry.

Russians currently have:

- 1 active nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruiser. 1 under refit. 2 retired.

- 1 nuclear-powered cargo ship (Sevmorput).

- 5 nuclear-powered icebreakers. Russians have over 400 reactor-years of operating experience with icebreakers. Starting with Lenin 1957.

- Not to mention submarines.

The reason why Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is not nuclear-powered has nothing to do with ability. The carrier design was not good to begin with and then Soviet Union collapsed.

Plus 90+ nuclear subs

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ssn.htm

Let the nuclear powers build the reactors and design the ships to slide them in like big batteries then IMHO. There can't be more than a few thousand cargo ships in the world--it's a risk that could be managed.

They get hijacked with some regularity.

I've only observed it from the outside (I worked on an aircraft carrier - but nothing to do with the power plants) but what I observed is that it takes a lot of people that get payed a lot of money in the private sector to safely operate and maintain reactors. I'm guessing that the building costs would be dwarfed by the long term cost of manning nuclear ships.

Interesting challenge for us then--if we're pouring money into self-driving cars and constantly making strides there, why can't we do the same for fully automated self-running nuclear reactors. If there's a future where we trust cars 100% to drive every family safely around town, we should be able to trust reactors to run themselves and fail safe. I don't see why a human brain has to be in the critical loop of reactor operation, other than tradition or legal CYA.

Each nuclear facility has a small army onsite, plus full-scale armies that can be summoned within a few minutes by panic button. In the middle of an Iowa cornfield.

Compare that to the threat environment at sea, plus the logistical difficulties of carrying around that much security. I doubt the Navy can spare a battle group to escort each container ship.

What if one of them gets lodged sideways in the Suez Canal?

Then some atomic pharao comes by to say hi!

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