Floating nuclear power plants to be mass produced for US coastline

1. You can mass manufacture the whole units in the controlled environments of shipyards, directly tackling the construction and project delivery issues that have plagued nuclear.

2. Water is decoupled from Earth, which will reduce accelerations significantly in large seismic events that challenge nuclear plants. Obviously the downside is that you have to deal with rogue waves and ship collisions.

3. The fundamental safety challenge in modern nuclear is assuring cooling of afterglow/decay heat after shutdown. In water, you have no shortage of this.

4. There are a lot more sites offshore

5. You can park 5-10km offshore and have 0 people in your typical emergency planning zone

6. If demand or policy shifts in your area, you can hoist anchor and operate elsewhere

7. You can leave common maintenance equipment for refueling and repairs at a few central shipyards and go home every 2 years to be cleaned up. The fleet can fill in with a spare so there is only a day of downtime rather than a few weeks.

Honestly it's a great idea. We very seriously considered it in the 1970s via Offshore Power Systems, built a facility to manufacture them, got a license to do so from the NRC. But we bailed: https://whatisnuclear.com/offshore-nuclear-plants.html

I predict weird nuclear and space proposals in the next few years.