Why don’t we have Nuclear or Hydrogen powered cargo ships?

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As nuclear is already used on aircraft carriers, and with a major cargo ship not having a large crew including guests so it can be properly scrutinized and managed by engineers, why hasn’t this technology ever carried over for commercial operators?

Similarly for hydrogen, why (or are?) ship builders not trying to build hydrogen powered engines? Seeing the massive size of engines (and fuel) they have, could they make super-sized fuel cells and on-board synthesizing to no longer be reliant on gas?

In: Engineering

23 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Little bit off topic, but I believe that Richard Feynman is credited with the patent for the nuclear powered rocket and airplane. Apparently when he was working in Los Alamos one of the army officers asked him for ideas for what uses nuclear power had and he reeled off a list. Feynman didn’t realise at the time, but this guy submitted patents for them all and those two hadn’t been taken yet.
Army owned the patents, but he is credited on them.

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