Regardless of cost, which itself makes this whole idea impossible, nuclear-powered container ships are simply not a possibility for this reason (and in fact the link you shared doesn't even mention them).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker
Do you think any Chinese or Russian-built nuclear container ship is going to be able to dock in the port of Los Angeles or New York (the two busiest in the country)?
(Edited to remove an incorrect statement - sorry!)
How about hundreds of cargo drones capable of lifting containers to transfer them from one ship to another? Something like this: https://www.cognitiveseeds.com/395-2/
Don't forget - a nuclear-powered ship that's not moving has a lot of free electricity: enough to charge all the drones (likely, bearing supercapacitors, as their flight from one ship to another will be very short)
Building drones that can lift containers from cargoships requires electricity/energy storage densities that are so far beyond anything realistic. A container can weigh up to 28 tonnes, there was exactly one helicopter that could carry this kind of load the Mil Mi-12 and that looked really more like a plane. Moreover if we would have those kind of densities why would we even use nuclear ships?
Nuclear drones!!1one! Problem SOLVED. Gee I'm smart. ;)
Let's see. There are two variables here in regards to power subsystem: power and energy capacity. Let's start with the power:
>A container can weigh up to 28 tonnes, there was exactly one helicopter that could carry this kind of load the Mil Mi-12 and that looked really more like a plane.
According to ([1]), we need around 0.28 kW/kg of thrust. Assuming that the drone weights twice more than a container, we need to have a lift of around 84 tonnes-force minimum, and ~100 tonnes-force in reality. That translates to 0.28 * 10^5 kW = 28 MW. This is close to what Mi-12 had (19.2 MW).
LTO batteries from Toshiba ([2]) advertise 3.5 kW/kg of energy density, which gives us 28 MW/3.5 kW/kg = 800 kg of batteries. Reasonable, given that our budget for drone dry weight is 56 tonnes.
Let's consider the energy capacity. To transfer a container from one ship to another standing 200 meters apart moving at 10 km/h, we would need 144 seconds for roundtrip. Let's make it 300 seconds for redundancy.
28 MW * 300 seconds = 2333 kWh. At 84 Wh/kg ([2]), we get 27.8 tonnes of batteries. Not great, but within out weight budget of 56 tonnes.
The gotcha here that I see is the longevity of these batteries (they are rated for 8000 cycles). Do you see any other issues? I mean, basic physics seems to allow for such drones (not saying it's trivial to make).
1. https://store.tmotor.com/goods.php?id=974
2. https://www.electrive.com/2022/01/12/toshiba-presents-new-20...
If one container move generates $10, and the drone moves 12 containers per hour, 12 hours a day, it will only take 6 months to earn the quarter of million mentioned.
Also, it might actually sound like a very cheap option compared to the ship-to-shore container cranes, which cost $20M-$40M each: https://www.freightcourse.com/port-cranes/
As for recharging: if our power train is 28 MW, why not charging it at the same speed as we discharge it? Why settle on 500 kW, which is really low? For comparison, Tesla supercharger is up to 300 kW, and a car is a much smaller EV.
As for charging at 28 MW: might work, given that the battery is physically larger, so there's more space to dissipate heat. I agree that it's not proven by the napkin math that it's doable.
What I really suspect is that if Los Angeles refuses to accept nuclear container ships, Mexico would let them in, and then the regular railway will be used to move them to the US. A much simpler solution. :)
But the biggest issue is is recharge, you can't recharge every 5 min. I mean how many of those drones are you going to employ? I mean a panamax class ship has 5000 containers. So either you need 5000 of those drones (good luck with them managing the off-onloading in 5 min) or some small subfraction, which then need to be recharged. Even if we assume we need to only move 500 containers (and use 500 drones), That means we either need to recharge 500 2333kWh batteries in 300s, how are you going to do that out on the ocean, or more likely you have 5 drones operating which need to work for 100 times as long, which increases you weight by 100. It just doesn't add up.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with port cranes.
As for can be offered: we're talking about moving a container from ship to ship which stand just hundreds meters away. The physics / math works, see my other comment.
As for drones to handle cases of ports which don't allow nuclear ships to dock: this is just a potential workaround. I kind of guess, that they will just focus on other ports first, and then eventually (like, in 5-10 years timeframe) everyone calms down and just allows such ships to dock in LA / NY / other US ports.
Yes, such ships will likely have to stay away from the US territorial waters, but there's plenty of routes where this won't be a problem.
As for tight margins: fuel costs represent 50%-60% of overall costs ([1]) and if these expenses are replaced with CapEx (hopefully, benefiting from economy of scale), then the tight operational margins suddenly become amazing, and there's a room for quality.
1. https://www.morethanshipping.com/fuel-costs-ocean-shipping/
if it turns out that such shipping via nuclear reactors is much more cost efficient (including all currently externalized costs such as emissions), then the US will have no choice but to accept it - or be uncompetitive in the global markets.
Maybe I’m too jaded these days.
I guess if you get the design to where it acts like a giant battery that is nearly impossible to tamper with it could work fine. Of course the political will to even try to do that doesn't exist.
If you have the access and ability to safely operate a nuclear reactor you also have the access and ability to operate it very unsafely if you choose to. There is no way around this that doesn't also remove your ability to operate it safely.
Not only they exist for decades, but as recently as January 2022, you could have bought tickets for a nuclear ship cruise: https://poseidonexpeditions.com/northpole/north-pole-icebrea...
Also, the nuclear container ship (the old one, but still in service): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
The link I shared is about a Chinese nuclear icebreaker that is supposed to lead container ships behind. Then there's no difference in terms of security if there's just one nuclear ship in a caravan or all of them.
As for Chinese specifically planning for nuclear powered container ships, I can offer this speculation: https://www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionpropelling-decarb...
That's while we have cheap oil. Once it is gone, having nuclear powered container super-carrier will be strategic interest of countries.
You can, of course, use nuclear energy to run your ships, and even trucks and planes.
Use the nuclear energy (both the electricity and heat) to produce fuel from CO₂ and H₂O. Use this fuel in your jet engines and colossal diesel motors. Burning it is carbon-neutral.
Oil should become much more expensive though, and building of nuclear facilities, much more cost-efficient, for this to become economically viable.
Nuclear container ship Sevmorput: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevmorput
Civilian nuclear icebreakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_icebreaker
Floating nuclear power plant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power...
That is essentially a state operator as far as I can tell.
I don't see a problem having nuclear container ships to be operated by civilian governmental agencies / state-owned enterprises. This might not work for the US, but we often have very unique ways of doing things.
The more interesting example is NS Savannah [1], which indeed crossed oceans unattended, and was accepted at European ports.
We know how to secure a reactor on land, but the sea is a big, dangerous place - and it's only a matter of time before some cost cutting idiot blows up a ship because they wanted a bigger bonus.
The more pertinent risk would be piracy and the like; if thorium ever catches on, it'd probably help make that less of an issue.
On the bright side: if a nuclear reactor melts down in the middle of the ocean, there’s basically nothing around to be inconvenienced by that event.
China is building a number of new nuclear ships starting with icebreakers but container ships are in the plans: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3155860/ch...