Monday 20 December 2010

Nuclear Powered Freight Shipping coming to a theater near you

Many of the bleeding edge thinkers on oil decline point to nuclear energy as being a valid substitute to diesel in freight shipping.

It seems that the freight shipping industry itself has finally sat up and taken notice. About time too I say to myself.

Anyways... One of the largest shipping and freight operators in the world, greek shipping operator Enterprise Shippind And Trading S.A. has gotten together with Hyperion Power and discussed the concept of powering the shipping fleet with nukes.

This has already been tried successfully by the Germans between 1970 to 1979 on a nuclear powered freighter called Otto Hahn.

So the crap we buy from Wal-mart will still be arriving from China much to the chagrin of our "green" friends, likewise the 4000 mile salads even post peak.

2 comments:

0s0-Pa said...

Interesting article... wonder if its safe to ship things that way, or if it would make things become radioactive!
-Jack @ Auto Transport

DB said...

Good Question Jack.
I suspect that since Nuclear Reactors have been used for years in nuclear submarines where the crew live right on top of the reactor, we should see massive rates of cancer among nuclear sub crews.

We don't. The shielding is pretty good in modern nuclear reactors.

So I think it's reasonable to say that the technology is safe enough for shipping.