[zizee]

There are many nuclear powered ships. If the decision is between nuclear proliferation, or the end of the global economy, I'm betting we'll choose the former.

If you have enough electricity, you can manufacture avgas, methane and whatever other fuels you need for aerospace.

[palata]

> There are many nuclear powered ships

What's the ratio of nuclear-powered big ships vs non-nuclear-powered big ships?

> If you have enough electricity

We're talking about moving our current electricity production entirely out of fossil fuels (because we produce a lot of electricity with them), then multiplying that production by 5, and at this point we're only producing the same amount of energy as today. But of course that's not enough, because we then need to use a lot of that energy to produce what's needed to replace oil, e.g. hydrogen.

We currently need what... 10-15 years to build a nuclear power plant? We're talking about building multiple orders of magnitudes more of them in a few decades, together with the electrical network and of course everything that needs to be re-engineered now that they can't run with oil anymore. And we're currently using oil for a reason: it's super dense, there is nothing more convenient.

And what value does it add? Nothing. It's just for replacing what currently works. Who will pay for that? Where will the money come from?

And this has to be done in a context where geopolitical instability will grow every year (because it is a fact: our access to abundant fossil fuel is coming to an end; Europe has seen it since 2007). And of course in a context where we are not remotely thinking about doing it. In the last decades, we as a society have actually kept accelerating in the opposite direction.

How realistic do you think your scenario is, really?

[bluGill]

> We currently need what... 10-15 years to build a nuclear power plant

Part of this is we don't build a lot of them and so are not good at it. If we set out to build hundreds of them per year we could do that, and costs would go down.

>And what value does it add? Nothing. It's just for replacing what currently works. Who will pay for that? Where will the money come from?

That is not an issue. A quick search says that ships have a lifetime to 20-30 years after which they are replaced. Sure there are a few antiques older than that, but for the vast majority of ships the owner will pay to replace it in 20-30 years anyway. Oil is not going to run out on a single day, it will be a process of years which is plenty of time for normal processes to work.

I don't favor nuclear in general, but for large ships it remains the only thing I know of that makes sense. (synthetic fuels are expensive, and solar/wind needs more space than a ship to deliver the power a ship wants).

[palata]

> If we set out to build hundreds of them per year we could do that, and costs would go down.

How do you get from "it takes 10 years now" to "it takes less than a year now if we really want it"?

Also you need qualified people to build that, it's not like you can vibe code it.

Again, peak oil in Europe was 2007, in the world it was currently 2018, it's not like we have 100 years to solve our energy problem. And I'm not talking about climate yet.

[bluGill]

It will take a few years of investment to develop qualified people to build it. We can't do it overnight, but we can in a few years if that is made a goal.

>peak oil in Europe was 2007

Europe is still using a lot of oil in 2025! They didn't have to change overnight, it is a long term process.

[palata]

> but we can in a few years if that is made a goal.

But that is very far from being a goal! Every year we emit more CO2, even though we already start seeing the effects of climate change (it's only beginning), but we keep accelerating in the wrong direction.

> Europe is still using a lot of oil in 2025!

That's not what I said. First, Europe imports pretty much the totality of their fossil fuels. And second, the European economy has been slowing down since 2007. The US likes to say "we have a better economy because we work more and better", but actually it seems pretty reasonable to think that it may be related to access to fossil fuels.

[AlessandroF6587]

Some reference material that can be helpful https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-3

[numpad0]

It doesn't take much time or effort to build nuclear powered anything if you were not concerned with bunch of turbojet Boeing planes circling above you. It takes centuries if you were.