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Re:We can do better than “same, but electric” by krasin on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @12:03AM (#30838638)
Then how do these nuclear ships operate for decades?

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...

Re:We can do better than “same, but electric” by dghlsakjg on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @12:47AM (#30838874)
All of the ships you linked to are operated by Rosatom or its predecessors.

That is essentially a state operator as far as I can tell.

Re:We can do better than “same, but electric” by krasin on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @01:02AM (#30838963)
State != military, though. For instance, all France nuclear power plants are operated by Électricité de France (EDF) that is substantially owned by the French Government, with around 85% shares in government hands ([1]).

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.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

Re:We can do better than “same, but electric” by nine_k on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @03:21AM (#30839760)
i suppose these ships only use Soviet / Russian ports, and mostly don't operate in high seas. Icebreakers do operate in high seas, but getting close to them is a bit hard due to ice and polar weather.

The more interesting example is NS Savannah [1], which indeed crossed oceans unattended, and was accepted at European ports.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah

Re:We can do better than “same, but electric” by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday March 29, 2022 @09:23AM (#30842213)
Of those, the icebreakers have been commercially successful due to logistics of fueling in the attic and the heavy fuel needs of ice breaking (both solved by a reactor that only needs to be refueled once every few years).