I'm reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery : 1,400 tonnes of explosives sunk in the Thames estuary. At least it's safeish as long as nobody touches it. The couple of nuclear reactors in subs that have already sunk are I believe in deep distant water, losing one inshore would be a serious problem.
Re:Calm Before the Storm
by dredmorbius on Friday November 15, 2019 @11:01AM
(#21545890)
Nuclear submarines tend not to congregate in and/or near shipping lanes, as a general rule.
Their role in commerce is limited.
Re:Calm Before the Storm
by dredmorbius on Friday November 15, 2019 @01:44PM
(#21547501)
... the point being, for nuclear-powered merchant traffic, that that does congregate near shipping lanes. Increasing consequent risk.
The scale of operations, with ~80,000 registered commercial large ships, regulation of an international activity dominated by lowest-cost, least-regulated, flag-of-convenience registries (as you note), very often minimally-trained, and very disempowered crews (authoritarian / high-gradient socio-economic-political power discrepencies play a role in numerous accident dynamics), training, and scrapping practices all put a distinct chill in that notion.