[rgmerk]

Hi guys.

I don't claim to understand any of the physics and engineering challenges of fusion, but from all the general-interest material published, and the long history of fusion research, it seems that the capital cost of a fusion propulsion system is going to be far in excess of a conventional marine engine. I guess the hope is that the very cheap fuel might reduce the operational expenses such that it can compete economically.

However, if you've got a fusion power plant that a) has essentially free and practically-massless fuel, and b) the relationship between rated power output and capital cost is less than linear (again, not an expert on the physics but true of pretty much all such systems), I wonder whether the way to make a fusion ship economically competitive against conventional shipping is to max out the power and build a ship capable of much faster speeds than conventional ships.

I mean, we used to operate passenger liners back in the 1950s that averaged about 35 knots across the Atlantic, so presumably we could do considerably better than that.