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
As far as Nuclear goes, I don’t think that people have touched on the real reason the military uses it – they don’t have to go into port to refuel for very long times (many years at a time). Carriers and combat ships can stay on mission for extended periods of time, submarines can hunker down for many years (really only need to come up for more food eventually), etc. If something happens and the ships cannot physically come into port, they will be ok.
Don’t need to do this with cargo ships. Diesel is cheap enough and frankly the cost of it get priced into the cost of doing business, so the ship operators don’t care too much (within reason) about the price of fuel because they are going to pass that on to the customers. Nuclear requires a lot of investment and technical staff that isn’t worth the additional money.
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