The world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship , the Savannah
No fuel added, powerful and almost zero emissions. With the decarbonization trend of the global shipping industry and the continuous innovation of civilian nuclear technology, nuclear-powered merchant ships, which were once considered high costs and high risks, are beginning to re-enter the field of vision, and the era of nuclear power for large ocean-going ships is coming.
Are large ocean-going vessels best suited for nuclear power? Countries around the world conduct research on civilian nuclear-powered ships
While nuclear power has not been seen as a viable merchant marine power option for a long time, in recent years, under the trend of decarbonization, nuclear power as a bunker has once again gained attention. A new study recently disclosed by Dutch ship design and engineering firm C-Job Naval Architects shows that nuclear energy could be used as ship propulsion in the future, and large ocean-going ships are the best choice for nuclear propulsion.
C-Job created four different ship type concepts for bulk carriers, container ships, oil tankers and offshore vessels, analyzing key issues such as the quality and volume of energy storage and power generation systems. The results show that even though the shielding around the reactor accounts for a large portion of the respective mass and volume of the nuclear power generation system, in most cases the nuclear power scheme is lighter and more compact than the traditional marine diesel scheme.
Based on the study, C-Job concluded that the molten salt reactor has the greatest potential in the long run, combining passive safety, high fuel consumption, and the potential for future use of thorium cycles to make it most suitable for marine applications. Compared to conventional fuel-based systems, nuclear-powered ships can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 98%, in addition to the complete elimination of air pollution such as sulfur oxides, particulate matter, and nitrogen oxides.
While capital expenditures for nuclear-powered vessels are high, C-Job's research shows that nuclear-powered vessels can be cost-effective within five to fifteen years, depending on fuel costs and vessel operating conditions. At the same time, nuclear-powered ships offer the possibility of considering higher design speeds, thus making ships more profitable. This is because the cost of fuel (OPEX) will only increase slightly as the speed increases, and the ultimate major limiting factor is the capital expenditure of a more powerful device.
In 2020, Terrapower, a nuclear energy company founded by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Core-Power, French nuclear material processing expert Orano and southern company in the United States, jointly established a new company to develop atomic energy technology for molten salt reactors in the United States.
In June last year, South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries announced that it would jointly develop a nuclear-powered ship with a small modular molten salt reactor with the National Atomic Energy Research Institute of South Korea. Samsung Heavy Industries plans to focus on the research and development of the molten salt reactor together with the ammonia and hydrogen energy technologies currently under development, making it a new future growth driver for Samsung Heavy Industries.
Last November, Japan Post Shipping, JMU and DNV collaborated on a conceptual design for a 20,000 TEU mega container ship equipped with a fusion reactor. The nuclear fusion reactor planned for the ship is likely to use magnetized target fusion (MTF) technology being developed by General Fusion of Canada.
In April, Norway's Ulstein Group unveiled a nuclear-powered, zero-emission ship design called Thor. Thor is a marine supply, scientific expedition, rescue ship, and its power source is the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. The vessel can also serve as a mobile "charging station" to recharge other ships sailing at sea.
Milestone! The UK will support the use of nuclear energy by merchant vessels through the Commercial Nuclear-Powered Vessels Regulation
Recently, the UK Department of Transport adopted the goals set by the Maritime and Coast Guard (MCA), which plans to enact the Merchant Marine (Nuclear-Powered Vessels) Regulations later this year to support the use of nuclear energy in merchant marine transport. The regulation, which is expected to enter into force in November 2022, implements the requirements of Chapter VII of SOLAS, which codifies the standards for the construction and operation of the Nuclear Code. While this is primarily a technical move to incorporate elements of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) into UK law, it is critical to providing the necessary structural support and is seen as a sign of the commercial industry's renewed interest in nuclear power.
According to the MCA, the regulation, along with close ties to other countries such as the United States, would increase the likelihood of achieving a nuclear-powered merchant ship flying the British flag.
The enactment of the act would complete years of efforts by the UK to make nuclear energy an option for commercial shipping. Following the publication of the proposed regulation, the MCA conducted a consultation period to allow the industry to comment on the regulation. In particular, the MCA raised a series of questions to determine the interest, the necessity of the rule, the consequences of the rule and the difficulty of meeting the investigation and inspection regime contained in the rules.
A total of 14 companies responded to the MCA, including classification societies, shipping organizations, research companies and commercial shipping companies. Of the 14 companies, 11 agree with the MCA that there will be a growing interest in nuclear-powered ships over the next 10 years, particularly in nuclear-powered large ocean-going oceans. Most of these companies also agree with the MCA that new or existing nuclear-powered vessels are unlikely to be registered in the UK until 2030. However, a majority of respondents also said that nuclear-powered ships are likely to begin construction by 2030.
Mikal Boe, founder and CEO of Core-Power, a British offshore engineering company dedicated to developing advanced nuclear energy technologies at sea, noted that the UK's development of nuclear-powered vessel regulations "is an important milestone in the progress of new nuclear energy regulation at sea".
Core-Power is developing an "atomic battery" component of the marine molten salt reactor (m-MSR) type that could power the world's largest ships and produce green synthetic fuels for small and medium-sized ships. Molten salt reactors could be the technology that ushered in the "second atomic energy era," in which climate change is the primary driver of powerful, cheap, and safe new energy solutions. Molten salt reactors have greater economic potential than oil and gas, providing the shipping industry with sustainable clean energy that will allow it to develop deep into the future without polluting the environment.
Accelerate R&D! A.S. Classification Society has received government funding to develop nuclear-powered merchant ships
At the same time, the U.S. government has also begun to develop nuclear-powered merchant ships. The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), which recently received an $800,000 contract from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), will examine the possibility of using nuclear power in commercial shipping.
This research project will address the challenges of adopting new reactor technologies in commercial applications at sea. A.C. will develop models of different advanced reactor technologies for offshore applications and develop industry consulting on the commercial use of modern nuclear power. The new project will be supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Center for Nuclear Reactor Innovation (NRIC) at Idaho National Laboratory, and includes the provision of advanced reactor frameworks to help suggest how to conduct offshore nuclear demonstrations.
Patrick Ryan, senior vice president of global engineering and technology at AAL, said: "Modern nuclear technology is increasingly seen as a potential solution to the decarbonisation challenges of the shipping industry. The technology undoubtedly has potential, both in terms of emission reductions and in the use of state investment in U.S. shipyards and their supply chains to develop terrestrial nuclear energy. However, many questions need to be answered, and the key is that the industry can evaluate these technologies with a security focus. ”
Ashley Finan, Director of NRIC, said: "The National Laboratory system has a powerful capability – when we work with industry, we can jointly apply these capabilities to meet our energy challenges, and NRIC was created to make this happen faster. There are huge opportunities to reduce carbon emissions from the shipping industry, and there is growing interest in the maritime and advanced nuclear energy sectors, and we are pleased to be part of this important work." ”
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the establishment of a National Nuclear Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) led by Idaho National Laboratory under the framework of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capability Act, which aims to provide private enterprise reactor technology developers with access to the STRATEGIC infrastructure facilities of the DOE National Laboratory, and to assist private developers in the development, demonstration and evaluation of new concept nuclear reactor technology to accelerate the licensing and commercialization of new concept reactor technology. This builds an economically and rapidly mature transition path for new concept nuclear reactors from concept prototypes to commercial products.
The establishment of NRIC helps to bring together nuclear technology-related businesses, federal government agencies, national laboratories and universities to jointly carry out the design, development, testing and demonstration of new concept advanced reactors; At the same time, it can provide sufficient conditional support for the testing, demonstration and performance evaluation of new concept reactor technologies to accelerate the commercial deployment of new advanced concept nuclear reactor technologies.
The concept of a molten salt reactor is one of the technologies that has attracted a lot of attention. The U.S. Department of Energy has also signed another smaller contract with AFR to support ongoing research into molten salt reactors at the University of Texas.
The United States was the first to experiment with nuclear-powered merchant ships, and Russia operated the world's only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers
Although nuclear energy was considered to have great potential for the marine industry as early as the 1950s, it was not developed due to global safety issues and challenges in the operation of shipboard systems. Although warships have successfully adopted nuclear-powered propulsion, applications in merchant shipping have not developed much other than a few experimental ships.
After World War II, America's revolutionary ambitions and fear of the "Cold War" led it to build nuclear-powered merchant ships. The Savannah appeared in this special era. Construction of the Savannah began in 1958 (lenin, the world's first nuclear-powered icebreaker built by the Soviet Union, had been completed) and commissioned in 1963. According to the international ship network, the captain is 182 meters, the width of the type is 24 meters, the full load displacement is 21800 tons, the power system uses a pressurized water reactor, the steam turbine is rated at about 16MW, the design speed is 20 knots, and the fuel can be filled once and can sail about 3 million nautical miles, which is equivalent to 138 weeks around the earth.
Primarily to demonstrate civilian nuclear power, the Savannah was the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship that successfully trialed a 20,000-horsepower nuclear-powered unit. However, as a merchant ship, the ship was too small and costly to operate economically, and was neither an efficient cargo ship nor a viable passenger ship. Limited by high construction and use costs and potential safety risks, the longer-term commercial uses planned by the United States and the Savannah did not last, and with the ship's retirement in 1971, the revolutionary U.S. claim to nuclear power as a power system for merchant ships was forced to fail.
In 1960, Germany built the first nuclear-powered oil tanker "Otto Hahn", which became a more strategic and economically efficient bulk carrier due to various factors, and was commissioned in 1968, becoming the third civilian nuclear-powered ship in the world after the Soviet Union "Lenin" (nuclear-powered icebreaker) and the American "Savannah". According to the International Ship Network, the "Otto Hahn" ship has a full load displacement of 16,870 tons, equipped with a 38MW pressurized water reactor to drive the steam turbine, and the maximum design speed is 17 knots. In 1970, the "Otto Hahn" made its maiden voyage to Morocco, and in the following two years, it completed a voyage of about 250,000 nautical miles, relying on 22 kilograms of enriched uranium fuel.
As a nuclear-powered merchant ship, the Otto Hahn sailed about 650,000 nautical miles on 126 voyages over a 10-year period, calling a total of 33 ports in 22 countries during its operation (the main ports of call were in Africa and South America) without any technical problems. But in 1982, the owner dismantled the nuclear reactor of the then decommissioned "Otto Hahn", converted it into a conventional powered (diesel-powered) container ship, and ended commercial operations in 2004.
In 1972, Japan completed the nuclear-powered merchant ship Mutsu, which had never actually carried commercial cargo, and during the first sea trial, its reactor suffered a serious radiation leak, which was protested by the Japanese people. In 1992, the Mutsu was retired after returning to Japan. In 1995, the nuclear reactor of the Mutsu was dismantled and converted into a conventionally powered oceanographic exploration vessel, the Mirai.
In addition to ships such as military ships and icebreakers, the only nuclear-powered merchant ship in operation in the world is Russia's Sevmorput. According to the International Ship Network, the ship was built by Zaliv Shipyard of Ukraine, delivered in 1988, discontinued in 2012, and then put back into operation in 2016, mainly responsible for the transportation of personnel and cargo at the Russian Arctic base. Last year, the ship also transported 1,400 tons of supplies to the Lubul nuclear power plant in Bangladesh.
The Sevmorput has a total length of 260.3 meters, a width of 32.2 meters, a draft of 11.8 meters, a payload of about 34,000 tons, a design of 1,328 TEU, and a nuclear fission reactor with an output of 135 MW, with a speed of 20.8 knots.
In addition, Russia currently operates the world's only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers. Nuclear-powered icebreakers in the Arctic have proven to be technically and economically viable, these ships can operate for years without fuel replenishment, and have powerful engines that are ideal for icebreaking missions.
For the merchant marine sector, nuclear-powered ships need to bear the cost of specialized infrastructure. For example, the U.S. nuclear-powered merchant ship NS Savannah is extremely expensive to operate, as it is the only vessel to use dedicated nuclear shore crew and service facilities. However, if the fleet is larger, fixed costs can be shared among more operating vessels, reducing operating costs.