EDITORIAL COMMENT
Redefining nuclear power
A Russian nuclear icebreaker heading for the North Pole.
S
ince the days of the Aldermaston marches, through to the establishment of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarma-
ment (CND) and the Greenham Common demonstrations nuclear power has been regarded as a dirty energy source. In the public collective psyche (if such a
thing exists) the dangers of nuclear energy are many. Long term pollution, secrecy, terrorism, high cost, a threat to the well being of the world. Detractors of nuclear energy point to Windscale in the 1950s, Harrisberg’s Tree Mile Island in the 1970s and Cherno- byl in the Ukraine 25-years ago. All caused pollution that will last many thousands of years, all these accidents had the potential to be considerably worse than they were. It is with good reason then, that the more
cerebral thinkers amongst the ship owning and operating community look at the idea of nuclear shipping with some trepidation. Nuclear power has a perception problem, said Maersk, with no hint of irony. Supporters of the power source are unfazed
by the apparent lack of interest in buying into the nuclear dream. Tough undeniably the political landscape has changed since the days of CND and Aldermaston, the designs are certainly better and as some would point out there are some 600 nuclear powered vessels operating safely around the globe today. Some may question just how safe they are, though accidents such as Kursk in 2004 are thankfully rare, the question is how will the radioactive material, with a half life far in excess of the vessel that surrounds it be recovered without pollution? Fourth generation plug & play reactors
would be sealed and protected from decay in addition the fissile material is considera- bly less radioactive than the material used in military hardware. What is more the attrac- tions of nuclear energy such as zero CO2
The Naval Architect January 2011
emissions, no NOx and SOx, no particulates and refuelling only at drydocking times, and capable of propelling an 8000TEU ship at 30knots, are many. Such a fuel should be able to give an owner
a competitive edge over his or her rivals and Lloyd’s Register says that some of the larger companies, such as Shell, Carnival, Cosco and Maersk are seriously considering the nuclear alternative. Yet even someone that is promoting the
benefits of nuclear power in the maritime sector believes that only a small proportion of the world’s fleet will ever use the atomic option. Vince Jenkins of Lloyd’s Register says the number of nuclear powered commercial ships could “run into the hundreds” rather than the thousands that would be needed to make a serious difference to the amount of emissions that the maritime sector produces annually. Given that there are some 46,000 ships
of above 1000gt operating around the globe today and emitting around 1billion tonnes of CO2
annually the proportion of greenhouse
gases saved even if 999 nuclear vessels were built would be in the marginal bracket. Estimates also show that the capital costs
of a nuclear vessel would be up to three times that of a conventional vessel, which is a large outlay for any company. For Maersk to order some six vessels to operate on the Asia/Europe trade the investment would be a similar cost to ordering 18 conventional container ships, but with only six ships to show for it their flexibility would be considerably reduced. In addition there are question marks
over whether some ports or nations would accept nuclear powered ships and with the ships having to queue to enter port, however fast they are over the water they could well be delayed by the port infrastructure which would considerably hamper the effective-
ness of such a ship. Nuclear power as a strategy for reducing
climate change or even the level of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping appears to be an unlikely fuel source. However, few people promoting the use of atomic energy are willing to discuss the element that could surpass all others as a brake on the develop- ment of nuclear energy. In fact the latest designs would see ship
operators paying for power by the hour and the power plant itself would belong to Hyperion, the manufacturer. Decommis- sioning in this instance and the handling of all nuclear waste would then be the respon- sibility of Hyperion. Costs for this service are hard to estimate,
and certainly BMT Nigel Gee, one of the four partners in the latest quest for marine nuclear energy, believe that “decommis- sioning is an issue”. In BMT’s opinion no commercial entity could take the respon- sibility for storing nuclear waste because that would need a commitment that ran into more than 20,000 years. Tis is not something that a commercial body could or would write a contract for and as such BMT agree that the cost would necessarily be borne by the taxpayer, in the long run. It will be intriguing to see which
democratic government would like to sell this idea to their electorate. In anticipation of this debate the reader is referred to Wikipe- dia: “On May 9, 2005 it was announced that THORP [the Termal Oxide Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield UK] suffered a large leak of a highly radioactive solution, which first started in July 2004. British Nuclear Group’s board of inquiry determined that a design error led to the leak, while a complacent culture at the plant delayed detection for nine months.” Plus ça change NA
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