[photonbeam]

They could put out a big production line of cheaper reactors, but the problem is that their navy boats are a target for missiles, which means larger risks of bad incidents. So they pick carefully

Cargo generally isnt a target in the same way

[dotnet00]

As much as I'd love to see nuclear powered cargo ships, they do still have to give consideration to the possibility of getting damaged.

Even putting aside exceptional situations like with the Houthis, we tend to get one or two highly public ship accidents per year. It would not be nice to have an incident like that involving a nuke ship every few years.

I feel like the solution for decarbonizing shipping would be carbon capture. Have the ships store the combustion products rather than exhaust them out, then reprocess them back into fuel on land using some other energy source (say, nuclear).

[bobthepanda]

one of the things being looked into is syngas from the carbon in the air, to produce net-zero hydrocarbons.

if it worked out, it would at least be relatively easy since pretty much all our infrastructure is designed around hydrocarbons.

[ok_dad]

That’s not why they don’t do it, it’s because it’s way too expensive. That fact alone precludes it from being used on cargo ships.

Now ask yourself this: do I want vessels flagged in the countries with the least regulations and the most corruption to be run by a for profit maritime shipping company that skimps on maintenance budgets and crew costs to be running nuclear reactors with highly enriched uranium (weapons grade) anywhere they want around the world, even through pirate territory?

Fuck No I don’t. I barely trust the nukes running them in the USN!