7 ms·

Plans for Nuclear-Powered 24,000 TEU Containership Unveiled in China

57 points by daVe23hu 3y ago

nielsbot 3y ago
It says they will use a molten salt reactor--has anyone made one of those work reliably? I don't actually know--I just have a vague sense that every molten salt reactor I've read about suffered from corrosion problems and had to be shut down.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  Surely a ship at sea need not be worried about such a well-understood problem as salt corrosion!
  - hypercube33 3y ago
    Or lack of coolant water...
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  I'm in nuclear and I'm super annoyed at the mass hysteria around announcing projects like this using totally unproven reactors. Just start with a time-honed PWR to decarbonize now and deal with the uncertainty and challenge of MSR development as a potential upgrade for later. MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904
  - mike_d 3y ago
    > MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 I think what you meant to say is the west needs tons of development to catch up. China already has TMSR-LF1 cleared for startup and expects to be able to start building MSRs for other countries by 2030. Half of all currently under construction reactors are in China, and they have plans for 154 in the next 15 years.
    - acidburnNSA 3y ago
      No, I meant what I said. TMSR-LF1 is a remake of ORNL's MSRE. After MSRE, the experts from that program wrote ORNL-5018 explaining what was needed to come next to commercialize the technology. China's done a great job of rebuilding knowledge needed to run a small reactor experiment. Now the hard work can begin.
      - mike_d 3y ago
        To my point, the United States basically threw in the towel in 1970 despite the director of ORNL calling it the facilities greatest technical achievement. The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. Unlike the US, China has very little in the way of domestic uranium supplies - but incidentally has massive thorium stockpiles from its monazite mining. I think it is naive to assume that an operation with effectively limitless funding led by the former director of CERN has only managed to clone a 50 year old research project without any advancements. Maybe a better perspective is that that given the strategic value they just aren't sharing the details with the rest of the world.
        acidburnNSA 3y ago
        > The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. This is such a common myth that it inspired me to write a whole thorium myths page to explain how and why it's not true, back in 2014: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1 https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1 Happy to discuss more but I've said a lot on that page.
        mike_d 3y ago
        Absolutely said a lot about the technical and economic justifications, but don't really address the political aspect at all. Remember the that decision was made by the AEC, which at the time was heavily influenced by the Military Liaison Committee. Also forgive me if I don't agree that the people who oversaw unethical human experimentation for 30 years and released radiation over my home town might not have made their decision based on the same sound reasoning you lay out. If you haven't read it already, Dr. Weinberg's memoir does a good job detailing the politics around the demise of the MSR.
sickofparadox 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom.
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  I recently found and got digitized an amazing documentary about the Savannah: https://whatisnuclear.com/news/2023-07-12-the-nuclear-ship-savannah-film-digitized.html https://whatisnuclear.com/news/2023-07-12-the-nuclear-ship-s... Also, she's currently for sale if you're interested. If they don't find a buyer it'll be scrapped.
  - preisschild 3y ago
    The reactor is unfortunately already removed though :(
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom To be clear, the NS Savannah was a showpiece. It was part passenger, part freight in a way that made no economic sense but looked fantastic and showed the concept could work. It ultimately failed because it had to bear the brunt of port negotiations. But that's a policy hurdle.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    Oh for sure, it was an atom corps show piece to flex their muscles, and probably also to entice ports to allow nuclear powered ships since many did not before it existed.
icegreentea2 3y ago
Rumor mill has been that China was planning on their type 004 class aircraft carriers to use molten salt reactors as well. These were apparently planned to enter service around 2030. More recent rumors have suggested that the MSR program has been running behind schedule. Anyhow, interesting dual use and program derisking thoughts there.
andrewstuart 3y ago
Given chinas massive economic downturn theres no shortage of container ships.
- m0llusk 3y ago
  The problem is the vast amount of pollution that those ships generate. In theory this alternative would provide the same service with far less ecological impact. Actually getting modern nuclear reactors to perform as expected has resulted in complications.
- dmz73 3y ago
  That statement does not make sense. Container ships are transporting manufactured goods from China to other countries - US, EU, ROW. If there are no shortage of container ships that means that those regions are experiencing economic downturn, not China. Chinese economic downturns will result in "no shortage of" ships that carry raw materials.
psunavy03 3y ago
The fact that we as a world economy are not significantly relying on nuclear power at this point is one of the biggest failures of climate change policy, if not the biggest failure ever. Yes, waste is a concern which needs to be managed responsibly. But at worst, the waste would only contaminate a finite area where it is stored. Climate change will affect literally everywhere on Earth. The US Navy has operated reactors for 70 years with a perfect safety record, yet people still fall victim to FUD insinuating that using nuclear is automatically asking for another Chernobyl or Fukushima. If you aren't serious about nuclear, you aren't serious about climate change.
- itishappy 3y ago
  > The US Navy has operated reactors for 70 years with a perfect safety record Loss of the vessel is a unique concern for naval equipment. The reactors on the Scorpion and Thresher have been slowly diffusing into the environment for the past 50 years. I'd be interested to know how contamination from these compares to Fukushima.
  - psunavy03 3y ago
    The Navy periodically takes radioactivity measurements near the wrecks, and has never found anything out of the ordinary that I can find online.
    - itishappy 3y ago
      This report from 2019 agrees: > The conclusions of this report confirm the results of previous environmental monitoring expeditions and demonstrate that the THRESHER and SCORPION have had no discernible effect on the radioactivity in the environment https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/09/f66/NT-19-1.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/09/f66/NT-19-1....
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > Yes, waste is a concern which needs to be managed responsibly. More than that: if I understand correctly, there are some newer designs which can take the waste of older plants, 'burn' it while extracting more energy, leaving a smaller amount of less-problematic waste at the end. For that reason alone we should be building some of those newer plants. If (beyond burning through older plants' waste) they are safer, more efficient and/or have a 'nicer' fuel cycle of their own: bonus. But for cost / climate etc: probably too little, too late. Renewables + storage will do the job. And later on, bring in fusion.
goodSteveramos 3y ago
Molten salt reactors with circulating fuel salts are hopelessly complex and totally impractical. There is no way China will ever actually build this. To understand why take a look at the amount of robotic equipment required to maintain the primary loop of this reactor mockup at ORNL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg
effnorwood 3y ago
[dead]
nojvek 3y ago
Amazing. Truly amazing if they ship the ship. Shipping industry could use nuclear. They’re large, in water, carry 1000s of containers. If all container ships are zero emission, that makes a decent difference in global emissions.
RecycledEle 3y ago
Nuclear civilian ships never took off in the First World due to the cost of dealing with silly regulations. I suspect China will care very little about our silly regulations. I hope they make a lot of things work that our C-suite lawyers and MBAs never understood the math on.

57 points by daVe23hu 3y ago

It says they will use a molten salt reactor--has anyone made one of those work reliably? I don't actually know--I just have a vague sense that every molten salt reactor I've read about suffered from corrosion problems and had to be shut down.

marssaxman 3y ago
Surely a ship at sea need not be worried about such a well-understood problem as salt corrosion!
- hypercube33 3y ago
  Or lack of coolant water...
acidburnNSA 3y ago
I'm in nuclear and I'm super annoyed at the mass hysteria around announcing projects like this using totally unproven reactors. Just start with a time-honed PWR to decarbonize now and deal with the uncertainty and challenge of MSR development as a potential upgrade for later. MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904 https://doi.org/10.2172/4227904
- mike_d 3y ago
  > MSRs need tons of development. See ORNL-5018 I think what you meant to say is the west needs tons of development to catch up. China already has TMSR-LF1 cleared for startup and expects to be able to start building MSRs for other countries by 2030. Half of all currently under construction reactors are in China, and they have plans for 154 in the next 15 years.
  - acidburnNSA 3y ago
    No, I meant what I said. TMSR-LF1 is a remake of ORNL's MSRE. After MSRE, the experts from that program wrote ORNL-5018 explaining what was needed to come next to commercialize the technology. China's done a great job of rebuilding knowledge needed to run a small reactor experiment. Now the hard work can begin.
    - mike_d 3y ago
      To my point, the United States basically threw in the towel in 1970 despite the director of ORNL calling it the facilities greatest technical achievement. The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. Unlike the US, China has very little in the way of domestic uranium supplies - but incidentally has massive thorium stockpiles from its monazite mining. I think it is naive to assume that an operation with effectively limitless funding led by the former director of CERN has only managed to clone a 50 year old research project without any advancements. Maybe a better perspective is that that given the strategic value they just aren't sharing the details with the rest of the world.
      - acidburnNSA 3y ago
        > The only reason uranium won out over thorium was because the waste was weapons grade and useful during the cold war. This is such a common myth that it inspired me to write a whole thorium myths page to explain how and why it's not true, back in 2014: https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1 https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium-myths.html#myth1 Happy to discuss more but I've said a lot on that page.
        mike_d 3y ago
        Absolutely said a lot about the technical and economic justifications, but don't really address the political aspect at all. Remember the that decision was made by the AEC, which at the time was heavily influenced by the Military Liaison Committee. Also forgive me if I don't agree that the people who oversaw unethical human experimentation for 30 years and released radiation over my home town might not have made their decision based on the same sound reasoning you lay out. If you haven't read it already, Dr. Weinberg's memoir does a good job detailing the politics around the demise of the MSR.

sickofparadox 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom.

acidburnNSA 3y ago
I recently found and got digitized an amazing documentary about the Savannah: https://whatisnuclear.com/news/2023-07-12-the-nuclear-ship-savannah-film-digitized.html https://whatisnuclear.com/news/2023-07-12-the-nuclear-ship-s... Also, she's currently for sale if you're interested. If they don't find a buyer it'll be scrapped.
- preisschild 3y ago
  The reactor is unfortunately already removed though :(
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Related ship back during the nuclear tech boom To be clear, the NS Savannah was a showpiece. It was part passenger, part freight in a way that made no economic sense but looked fantastic and showed the concept could work. It ultimately failed because it had to bear the brunt of port negotiations. But that's a policy hurdle.
- sickofparadox 3y ago
  Oh for sure, it was an atom corps show piece to flex their muscles, and probably also to entice ports to allow nuclear powered ships since many did not before it existed.

icegreentea2 3y ago

Rumor mill has been that China was planning on their type 004 class aircraft carriers to use molten salt reactors as well. These were apparently planned to enter service around 2030. More recent rumors have suggested that the MSR program has been running behind schedule. Anyhow, interesting dual use and program derisking thoughts there.

andrewstuart 3y ago

Given chinas massive economic downturn theres no shortage of container ships.

m0llusk 3y ago
The problem is the vast amount of pollution that those ships generate. In theory this alternative would provide the same service with far less ecological impact. Actually getting modern nuclear reactors to perform as expected has resulted in complications.
dmz73 3y ago
That statement does not make sense. Container ships are transporting manufactured goods from China to other countries - US, EU, ROW. If there are no shortage of container ships that means that those regions are experiencing economic downturn, not China. Chinese economic downturns will result in "no shortage of" ships that carry raw materials.

psunavy03 3y ago

The fact that we as a world economy are not significantly relying on nuclear power at this point is one of the biggest failures of climate change policy, if not the biggest failure ever. Yes, waste is a concern which needs to be managed responsibly. But at worst, the waste would only contaminate a finite area where it is stored. Climate change will affect literally everywhere on Earth. The US Navy has operated reactors for 70 years with a perfect safety record, yet people still fall victim to FUD insinuating that using nuclear is automatically asking for another Chernobyl or Fukushima. If you aren't serious about nuclear, you aren't serious about climate change.

itishappy 3y ago
> The US Navy has operated reactors for 70 years with a perfect safety record Loss of the vessel is a unique concern for naval equipment. The reactors on the Scorpion and Thresher have been slowly diffusing into the environment for the past 50 years. I'd be interested to know how contamination from these compares to Fukushima.
- psunavy03 3y ago
  The Navy periodically takes radioactivity measurements near the wrecks, and has never found anything out of the ordinary that I can find online.
  - itishappy 3y ago
    This report from 2019 agrees: > The conclusions of this report confirm the results of previous environmental monitoring expeditions and demonstrate that the THRESHER and SCORPION have had no discernible effect on the radioactivity in the environment https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/09/f66/NT-19-1.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/09/f66/NT-19-1....
RetroTechie 3y ago
> Yes, waste is a concern which needs to be managed responsibly. More than that: if I understand correctly, there are some newer designs which can take the waste of older plants, 'burn' it while extracting more energy, leaving a smaller amount of less-problematic waste at the end. For that reason alone we should be building some of those newer plants. If (beyond burning through older plants' waste) they are safer, more efficient and/or have a 'nicer' fuel cycle of their own: bonus. But for cost / climate etc: probably too little, too late. Renewables + storage will do the job. And later on, bring in fusion.

goodSteveramos 3y ago

Molten salt reactors with circulating fuel salts are hopelessly complex and totally impractical. There is no way China will ever actually build this. To understand why take a look at the amount of robotic equipment required to maintain the primary loop of this reactor mockup at ORNL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg

effnorwood 3y ago

[dead]

nojvek 3y ago

Amazing. Truly amazing if they ship the ship. Shipping industry could use nuclear. They’re large, in water, carry 1000s of containers. If all container ships are zero emission, that makes a decent difference in global emissions.

RecycledEle 3y ago

Nuclear civilian ships never took off in the First World due to the cost of dealing with silly regulations. I suspect China will care very little about our silly regulations. I hope they make a lot of things work that our C-suite lawyers and MBAs never understood the math on.