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Comment by wkat4242 | Hacker News Reader

Considering the shipping industry right now uses the absolute worst, most polluting terrible fuels they can find as soon as they're in international waters, we have absolutely zero chance they will handle the risks of nuclear responsibly.

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A factor that is often ignored is that bunker fuel is an inevitability of the refining process. It’s not like you can stop making it without stopping other fuel production. So it’s either going to get burned or disposed of some other way.

Oil is naturally occurring and just because it exists doesn't mean we need to burn every component of it, releasing it into the atmosphere.

Bunker fuel could hypothetically be re-injected into depleted reservoirs, much like brine water which is a useless byproduct of production. This would increase production costs of other components but at the benefit of the world's climate.

> the shipping industry right now uses the absolute worst, most polluting terrible fuels they can find as soon as they're in international waters

This was the case before 2020, but I think it has now been addressed by IMO 2020.

https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/pages/34-I...

It is still used exactly as much as it was before, and sadly won’t change as a result of IMO for quite some time.

If it's still used just as much, then why are atmospheric SOx levels falling, especially over the oceans? [1]

I'm not saying there's 100% adherence, but you're saying this isn't related at all?

[1] https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1669667629844267008

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