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
The purpose of a cargo ship is to take cargo from port to port regularly and continuously. The goal is to do this reasonably quickly and at reasonable cost to win customers. Nuclear is not useful. Port to port means the ship doesn’t really need to fuel itself for ultra-long journeys like patrolling oceans etc. And nuclear power is expensive to maintain and not many place can do that and the down time is super high compared to regular old engines. So the cargo ship ends up being out of service for long periods – all bad for business.
Politically too, it is an issue. Many countries don’t allow nuclear powered vessels into their ports further limiting the customer base.
Hydrogen is expensive to store and is less energy dense. Facilities to refuel hydrogen ships are rare (probably none) and expensive since it is TOTALLY different from oil/diesel and therefore there is no sharing of infrastructure. Companies are now experimenting with commercial ammonia fueled ships which is sort of “near” hydrogen. So there is a chance this will work in the future.
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