The facts on fission
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Nuclear marine propulsion is not new. It began in the 1940s and reached sea in 1955 with USS Nautilus, and by the 1960s the US, UK, France, Russia and China all had submarine programmes. More than 160 vessels, mostly submarines but also aircraft carriers, cruisers and icebreakers, are now powered by upwards of 200 small reactors. The safety record in the US, UK and French navies has been excellent, although the Soviet fleet has suffered several serious incidents, including the loss of the submarine Kursk in 2000.
But commercial nuclear shipping has never succeeded. The US Savannah, the German Otto Hahn and the Japanese Mutsu were all technically capable but uneconomic, and only Russia’s Sevmorput remains in service. These naval designs are proven at sea, but they are a different generation of technology to the Gen4 small modular reactors (SMRs) being proposed for commercial vessels, none of which have been built or tested.
Faster for longer
One owner keen to explore nuclear energy’s possibilities is Norwegian tanker operator Knutsen, which is