Inside Opinion: I Say We Nuke It, It's the Only Way to be Sure

When I was a kid, I used to make those plastic Airfix models, and the one that really sticks in my mind was a rather obscure one of the NS Savannah. I remember being fascinated at the time at the idea of a merchant vessel that was nuclear powered.

For those of you who don't know, the Savannah was a 9,000 dwt general cargo vessel launched in 1962, powered by a nuclear reactor heating water to steam to run steam turbines to push her through the water at a then-impressive 21 knots or so.

She ended her short career in 1972, just ten years after launch, and resides today as a floating museum in the U.S.. At that time of course, just as containers were coming into fashion, fast general cargo vessels were the industry's mainstays but the 70s saw an explosion in vessel size and the Savannah was just too small. Her reactor was too costly (even with U.S. government subsidies) and oil was cheap and plentiful at the time.

Triple E

Fast forward 41 years and the picture is very different. Vessels are slow-steaming because oil is so expensive, but the average vessel size has mushroomed in every sector save for the crude tankers.

I saw the other day the first pictures of the new Maersk Triple E class container vessels. At 18,000 TEU, almost a third of a mile long and 194 feet wide this new class of container vessel displaces a bit more than a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier but is designed for 19 knots.

The Nimitzes have been around for years and the oldest is older than the Savannah, and incredibly the U.S. is still building them. Slightly smaller than the Triple E boxships, the pressurised water reactors on the aircraft carriers drive these leviathans well past the 30 knot mark with no difficulty.

You've guessed what I'm getting at I'm sure.

We're now seeing vessels so large carrying containers around that propulsion technology has hit its limits. We simply cannot build a single shaft box vessel that large to run that quickly, at current technology levels.

19 knots is, as you probably know, somewhat more sedate than the sportscar speeds boxships were designed and run at before 2008. Maersk themselves have a class of vessels designed to go faster even than the Nimitzes. They are, unsurprisingly, almost all laid up in the current slow-steaming, high-bunker price environment. So the demand is there for faster than 19 knots. The reefer ship market is enjoying an indian summer on almost solely this niche.

Oil is running out. It will likely not happen during my career, but we're going to have to move away from bunker oil as we know it now as a fuel to a large extent. LPG may represent a solution, so might widespread introduction of SkySails and similar projects. But how long, do we think, will it be before someone at one of the big container lines does the sums on revisiting nuclear powered ships?

Cheaper, Safer

Nuclear power is much cheaper and much safer than it was. The US PWR2 reactor is mass-produced in many forms and derivatives, as is its UK counterpart at Rolls Royce and in more than a dozen countries worldwide. They are light, cheap, much more compact than the powerplant needed to provide the same amount of power conventionally and extremely safe.

Notwithstanding the awful environmental impact of spent fuel and the questions this raises, in this era of SECAs etc, at what stage does nuclear power become a realistic alternative?

I'd contend it probably already is, for the enormous box ships that ply the trunk trade routes of the world long-haul. As these get bigger and bigger (and unbelievable though it seems, someone is bound to go larger than the Triple E's at some stage soon) then nuclear power becomes more and more attractive.

Adding a pair of small pressurised water reactors and shielding would likely double the cost of a $300m box ship, but then cruise companies might regard a $600m outlay on a key newbuild as a bargain!

Imagine being able to transport 20,000 TEU or more on a vessel able to travel at 22-24 knots, saving you $4-5m in bunkers on one trip at current bunker prices. On a vessel that generates no CO2, no NOx, no SOx and using a powerplant that requires fewer crew to run it.  All this, using an engineering space a tenth of the size of the towerblock-sized expanses on the current vessels, meaning more room for cargo!

Then imagine over the course of the year IFO380 indexes up $200 in the ports you use, perhaps ironically because someone undesirable decides they want in on the nuclear game at a rather different level.

Imagine having the capital lying about to build ten or twenty of these vessels and the ticket price gets lower with each one you buy. Imagine then having meetings with dockyards in the UK and elsewhere who specialise in reactor servicing and de-fueling, and who are desperate to do more private commercial business with the decline of the military and are charging much, much less than you'd think.  

Suddenly the one off purchase price doesn't seem so prohibitive does it?

Something Has to Give

At the end of the day, money talks. The market is not making profits with box rates so low, so clearly something has to give, and when it does, we'll have a whole new nuclear arms race again.

I'll stick my neck out here and say I don't think we'll see container (or bulk) vessels much bigger than they are getting now, using conventional oil propulsion.

Whatever you think of nuclear power (and there are vocal lobbying groups that would make a first adopter need a very savvy PR firm) there hardly seems any option - if the markets dictate that the box majors want (read: need) bigger or faster or cheaper or all three, then what else is there?

As Sigourney Weaver says in one of my all time favourite films: "I say we nuke it. Its the only way to be sure."