Nuclear power for commercial high-speed sea-lift

A 1000 MW (thermal) pressurized water reactor concept design for large, fast merchant ships is presented here. The design study was undertaken to provide an input to an overall assessment of the near future economic viability of nuclear merchant shipping. The intention was to use a widely available nuclear industrial base completed with features considered necessary like: the diversity of shutdown (reactivity compensation rods, safety rods and soluble boron), a large pressurizer (to tolerate loss of steam demand without relief valve lift and to support a long response time for small leak events), the loop isolation (to manage risks of steam generator tube bundle leaks) and the passive long-term cooling to the atmosphere via duplicate systems. It appears that nuclear propulsion will have an advantage if oil prices rise by 25% or more