Nuclear-powered submarines, icebreakers, and aircraft carriers have been roaming the seas for decades. They were once joined by a small number of nucl

When America Dreamed of a Nuclear-Powered Cargo Fleet

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2024-10-23 15:00:07

Nuclear-powered submarines, icebreakers, and aircraft carriers have been roaming the seas for decades. They were once joined by a small number of nuclear-powered merchant ships used to carry cargo.

Four countries have launched nuclear-powered merchant ships: America built the NS Savannah , a passenger-cargo ship; Germany built the Otto Hahn , which carried ore for nearly a decade; Japan built the Mutsu , which was decommissioned after a single test run; and Russia built the Sevmorput , which carried cargo until 2012.

America’s sole nuclear-powered cargo ship was one of the jewels of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” project. The NS Savannah was supposed to be the first of many American nuclear-powered merchant ships. She turned out to be the last.

How does a nuclear-powered ship work? In simple terms, conventional ships use diesel-powered engines (burning bunker fuel) to drive turbines; nuclear-powered ships drive the turbine with energy from a nuclear reactor. Instead of storing large and fluctuating quantities of fuel, a nuclear-powered ship uses a central, internally-constrained storage and consumption system. In the ‘50s, the world was enthralled by the idea of an inexpensive, thimble-sized amount of nuclear material powering a ship.