Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hef19898 907 days ago
Solutions for green hydrogen generation from sea water do exist, and are even competitive depending on volume produced. One (!) nuclear powered cargo vessel, built as a specialized ship for fleet support in the Russian arctic seaa and capable of going through 1.5 meters of ice (thus requiring the power output of a nuclear power plant, same reason Russian icebreakers use NPPs) and bein used for supply missions to the Russian naval base in Murmansk, doesn't really count.

Again, those other cargo ships, NS Savannah, Otto Hahn and the Japanese one, were all economical failures, the Japanese one was even a technological failure. That makes a grand total of around 7 civilian maritime NPPs in operation, all Russian, with less than one built per year. Global shipping needs hundreds of those, at cost point competitive with alternatives to be viable. That tech, or capacity to build those numbers, simply doesn't exist. heck, that is even mentioned as a direct quote in the Reuters article that is being paraded around.
1 comments
Manuel_D 907 days ago
They were economic failures relative to fossil fuel powered ships - not relative to green fuels powered ships.

Again, if you're going to say that civilian nuclear maritime propulsion doesn't exist, because there have only been 7 such ships built by four different countries then green fuels powered cargo ships don't exist either. Again, how many cargo ships have been powered by green fuels? How many have operated for more than a decade?

link
hef19898 907 days ago
Oh dear god, I just lost a considerable amount of brain cells...

A couple of questions, answer those or just, pardon my French, shut up:

How do you think all those hundreds of nuclear ship reactors will be built yearly?

Have you heard of NOx catalysts?

Are you aware of the possibility to generate hydrogen through electrolysis?

Hoe do you square the fact that litterally nobody in the shipping industries is making the case for nuclrar powered cargo vessels?

link
Manuel_D 907 days ago
> Hoe [sic] do you square the fact that litterally [sic] nobody in the shipping industries is making the case for nuclrar [sic] powered cargo vessels?

Literally nobody, huh? https://maritime-executive.com/article/abs-completes-groundb...

link
hef19898 907 days ago
One study that didn't make it into shippings decarbonization initiative...

Any "brilliant" thoughts on zhe other questions? Or the fact that your articke ends with pointing out nuclear propulsion was considered promising in the 50s and was a dead end ultimately?

If you want to play the game of digging up studies that didn't go anywhere, I need some time so. Just from top of my head:

flying wing passanger aircraft, that was something! Even Airbus launched studies into it, and man was it promising!

link