Here the KUN-24AP container ship would be a massive departure with its molten salt reactor. Despite this seemingly odd choice, there are a number of reasons for this, including the inherent safety of an MSR, the ability to refuel continuously without shutting down the reactor, and a high burn-up rate, which means very little waste to be filtered out of the molten salt fuel. The roots for the ship’s reactor would appear to be found in China’s TMSR-LF program, with the TMSR-LF1 reactor having received its operating permit earlier in 2023. This is a fast neutron breeder, meaning that it can breed U-233 from thorium (Th-232) via neutron capture, allowing it to primarily run on much cheaper thorium rather than uranium fuel.
An additional benefit is the fuel and waste from such reactors is useless for nuclear weapons.
Another article with interviews: https://gcaptain.com/nuclear-powered-24000-teu-containership-china/
Potentially melting down in the middle of a shallow city harbour as an overworked skeleton crew is worried about their families back home getting evicted for not paying the rent all while the parent company does more layoffs and posts record profits in their quarterly reports.
As opposed to the mass extinctions caused by global warming going on right now??
What is your point that you are unwilling to hear safety concerns bc it’s worse right now? That’s why there is a mass extinction. We have to move away and address safety at the same time. If that means removing private companies from shipping, so be it.
Classic “letting perfect be the enemy of good” energy.
Which is an excellent argument for going back to wind powered ships. Who cares if the treats come a bit more slowly?
I’d love some engineers to do that, I think it’d be totally awesome. However, that hasn’t been done and we can only compare proposed solutions to existing ones, not hypothetical ones.
Sailboats are hypothetical?
the best clippers were fractions of the size of the boats now, even if modern materials can make a more efficient one, we’re talking a difference of 1780 tons --> 336000 tons here. to say nothing of how much more labor is involved on a rigged ship
But what if you replaced one boat with more than one boat?
It’s much better to just reduce shipping volume than dive into the unknown without considering safe guards. Your making dangerous arguments that are following the same reckless ideas that got us here.
Which would require a global revolution to accomplish, vs a solution that reduces real harms right now. I thought communists weren’t supposed to be utopian?
Utopian is thinking that you just hope it all works out and roll forward ignoring risk again.
The thread is absolutely filled with people telling you there is little to fear. Nuclear isn’t profitable, that is why capitalists have brainwashed you into believing it is dangerous. Even with the noted disasters, nuclear has still killed a fraction of the people coal has, per kilowatt hour created. Hell, coal plants are even more radioactive than nuclear ones. And this ship is safer still, because it quite literally can’t catastrophically meltdown, as it is in the FUCKING OCEAN.
Such is true, and yet, it would be safer without the commercialization of shipping. What point do you make? None. Only suggesting that we just blindly accept. Not shipping is the best step today until we understand the risks of a new system. Think beyond tomorrow and go slow. We need not rush, only not be complacent. To rush to gain is the disease of the capitalist.
The question kind of is what’s the other options. The organizational and economic pressure still applies to ICE ships. Not sure I’d be much happier about a normal tanker dumping a few thousand liters of crude oil on the coast.