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Comment by bunabhucan | Hacker News Reader

We lose ~31 cargo ships per year, has "nuclear reactor shipwreck cleanup" been factored into the insurance costs to operate these in industrial ports?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/236250/looses-of-ships-w...

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When I've promoted the idea of nuclear cargo ships it's in conjunction with the US military running a fleet of them as a federal service. So these aren't just cargo ships, they're a navy presence around the world. Hopefully better funded, better ran, and better defended. What's nice about this is you get both the American "left" (environmentally conscious) and "right" (pro military) with one new initiative.

Is that economically sustainable or would the US have to be subsidizing this significantly? Or would the reduced shrink rate / easier inspections make up the cost difference?

Came here to make a comment like this. Could also be a civilian retirement path for nuke sailors, rather than just going to manage a civilian power plant :P

Do you realize how much it costs to do nuclear on a ship? It’s not financially viable. The US Navy only uses it because they don’t want to have to fuel carriers.

Does it need to be financially viable if you’ve got the military budget at your disposal?

The military budget isn’t some unlimited supply of cash coming from the void. I’ll agree if we cut one carrier for each nuclear container ship or two that we add, then we’re not spending more.

I don't know if we need any more military scope creep. The military already has to deal with Russia v. Ukraine, Israel v. Gaza, pirates blowing up ships in the Suez canal, North Korea rattling its sabers, and an almost-inevitable invasion of Taiwan.

This take may be way off base but instead of trying to avoid 100% of nuclear incidents, shouldn't we be comparing the relative risk of nuclear environmental damage to the guaranteed and ongoing environmental and climate damage done by burning 200 million tonnes of heavy oil every year?

Maybe a few sunken nuclear reactors is already a better alternative? Again, I may be completely wrong, just seems like something that isn't being discussed.

In an ideal world, maybe so. But we haven't managed to clear the hurdle for ground-based power production so upping the ante to something that can sink would be even more challenging.

I'm with you on the sunken ones in deep water.

The "smeared along a beach or headland" ones are more worrying. What if the storm gets the reactor above the water line? What if a houthi anti ship missile wrecks/ignites the reactor compartment? What if armed men burst out of some of the 20000+ containers and deliberately try to engineer a disaster?

The golden ray (a car transporter) capsized in calm waters in a sheltered bay and the cleanup cost $850m. Fukishima is a twelve figure number.

Chernobyl on the rocks would be uninsurable.

Or just use hydrogen or hydrogen derived syn-fuels without any of the disadvantages.

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