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Comment by speedgoose | Hacker News Reader

One ship could always go nuclear, or use wind.

Civilian nuclear-powered cargo ships have actually been tried in the past, a large issue was that a lot of ports refused them entry if I remember correctly.

There's also the minor issue that they are, like most forms of nuclear power, hellishly expensive.

Several have been built and people have generally gone "huh, thats cool but it's way too expensive".

Thats the main reason why theres currently only 1 in the whole world.

They are expensive because they don't externalize their environmental costs upon the rest of the world.

The environmental costs of renewables (other than biomass) are minor.

There could be nuclear “tanker” ships that recharge electric battery ships on their routes.

Nice picts and walkthrough [0] of the NS Savannah, "the world's first, and only, nuclear-powered cruise ship. The Savannah is the only nuclear-powered merchant ship the U.S. ever built, and the only nuclear vessel in the world designed with passengers in mind."

[0] https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1182973358/step-aboard-the-nu...

I don't that that's the major issue. At least, the Wikipedia entry for the NS Savannah only mentions being excluded from Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_marine_propulsion#Civi... comments the major issue is the costs of specialized infrastructure, and points out how research about a modern design concluded "further maturity of nuclear technology and the development and harmonisation of the regulatory framework would be necessary before the concept would be viable."

Wind doesn't work with container ships, the sails are in the way of the cargo cranes at port. Might be an interesting idea for passenger ships though, but even there... there are ports which have a height limit (e.g. Hamburg) because ships need to pass below bridges.

Nuclear in civilian hands is an absolute no-go for proliferation / terrorism concerns.

Someone should tell theses guys about wind power.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/22/travel/wind-powered-cargo-shi...

Yep, and those smartly can fold down! Also used for storms I assume.

Those only provide about 30% of the ships power.

Well there are cranes at the port, make the sails detachable and dismount them to load.

2 proposed solutions for wind are

1. Kites attached by cable (deployed, high altitude for consistent winds)

2. Magnus effect cylindrical turbines that rise out of the ship.

Russia tried that for nuclear, it wasnt a success.

Though that was because it was badly mismanaged and the technology wasn't there yet.

A fuel-powered ship can ramp output up and down as needed, since the per-power costs of the powerplant aren't that high.

Nuclear power plants are much more expensive, and require a much higher (and more expensive) level of labor. These fixed costs are not reduced when full power is not needed.

Yup, this is the headache with nuclear--your marginal costs of generating power are very small (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're negative as big machines prefer to run at constant settings--it wouldn't shock me one bit if throttling it up and down causes more maintenance cost than fuel savings) and thus it's only sensible in environments where 100% throttle is useful, or in environments where cost isn't an important driving factor (military vessels) or fueling is problematic (IIRC Russia had a nuclear-powered icebreaker.)

Put your reactors on land, when the grid has too much power you direct it to something like this (or the hydrogen generator that showed up here a few days ago) and convert it to chemical energy.

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