Molten salt reactor (MSR) technology has the potential to revolutionise the commercial shipping industry by making the largest ships faster, cleaner and more efficient, Core Power Chairman and CEO Mikal Bøe said in an interview with World Nuclear News.
How could nuclear energy transform commercial shipping?
This is a USD7 trillion per year industry at the heart of global trade which is desperate for a clean energy solution because it must reduce its CO2 emissions by 50% of 2008 levels by 2050, according to a mandate from the United Nations International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
For the nuclear industry, it’s a unique opportunity to create the ultimate ‘nth-of-a-kind’ mass production system around a hugely positive, deep-impact narrative. Our aim at Core Power is to create an integrated power system where the ship is fuelled for life, which is 20-30 years depending on the type of ship, which in turn avoids handling spent nuclear fuels in ports.
In addition, we believe that ships powered by advanced nuclear can easily provide 100% clean electric power to the ports they call in, which would change the commercial shipping industry’s contract with the international community in a hugely positive way, both for the public and the environment.
Why are you focusing on container ships?
Large container ships are different to bulkers and tankers in that they carry most of their cargo above the waterline, which is why their hulls are streamlined to travel through the water faster, but they need an enormous amount of power to achieve high speeds.
The diesel engines onboard consume more than 200 tonnes of fuel per day, which produces over 600 tonnes of CO2. That’s both very polluting and extremely expensive. What we now see is the inevitable introduction of carbon taxes and pollution penalties, which will be passed on to consumers and cause inflation in the price of industrial components and durable consumer goods as the cost of commercial shipping increases.
Smaller containerships will benefit from zero-carbon fuels like green ammonia that we aim to produce using power from the MSR to avoid most of those penalties. The larger, much faster container ships eventually powered by advanced nuclear reactors that do not pollute the air or the sea and which power the ports in which they call, would be immune to these entirely.
How can MSR technology produce a speed of 30 knots?
According to the naval architecture and marine engineering we have today, these are the speeds that modern hulls are already capable of, and so it’s more a matter of having a power rating that stretches out the advanced nuclear fuel cycle in a way that avoids refuelling and creates a practical maintenance regime of the power systems onboard.
We believe it will be possible to reduce a standard Trans-Pacific voyage from 12 days currently to around 7 days, and that the long-haul Korea-Rotterdam round-trip could be reduced from 80-85 days to as few as 45 days. That kind of speed means shippers could avoid the Suez Canal altogether, saving themselves USD1.5 million in transit tolls and the possible delays that such chokepoints represent.
If we get this right, the MSR would keep powering these ships for their lifetime, which is around 30 years. Bulk carriers, tankers and cruise ships have different lifespans, and the technology could be calibrated to each sector. We would also aim to continue to use the fuel from the MSR long afterwards, by loading it into new generations of MSRs. Recycle and reuse – that must be the future of nuclear.
How would you characterise the shipping and nuclear industries?
Shipping has an inherent ingenuity, not merely to survive but to thrive in the most hostile of environments. Its engineering is so good and so established that it can delegate authority to a crew that are living on a piece of steel in the middle of the ocean facing waves of up to 40-metres high and transporting valuable and precious cargo.
If you take all of that and add the smartest nuclear guys in the world designing the most fuel efficient small atomic power system, then you can have the best of both worlds, resulting in a container ship that travels twice as fast for twice as long. The nuclear industry innovates to make the most of new scientific knowledge and technological advancements.
We are already living with the effects of climate change. We all see it, feel it and fear it. There’s a growing realisation that we can’t solve the climate crisis without nuclear energy; it must be a major component along with weather-dependent fossil fuel saving devices, like solar and wind, and a good complement to dispatchable geothermal and hydro.
What is unique about the MSR from among advanced nuclear technologies?
In an MSR the fuel and the coolant are the same, so you can’t lose either. The fuel salt, which is the coolant is impervious to radiation damage and remains chemically stable to be used and recycled for a very long time.
An MSR operates with ambient pressure only and the fuel is always liquid when critical. At regular power, the temperature of the reactor would remain at around 600 degrees Celsius, which is double the temperature you can get with a pressurised water reactor. That’s useful for really efficient power conversion systems and for industrial applications such as producing green hydrogen and ammonia fuels for shipping.
On an MSR powered ship, the idea is that the reactor will be used until the vessel is decommissioned. The MSR itself, or the fuel from the MSR, can then be used for the next generation of reactors and next generation of ships.
How do you manage the public’s concern of a nuclear incident at sea?
Accidents at sea do happen – ships sink, ships catch fire, ships collide – but an MSR will always be well protected and in the event of a catastrophic emergency, shut itself down thanks to its passive safety characteristics.
The idea is that even if there is no crew left onboard, the reactor system is passively shut down, and left to cool inside the reactor compartment, without polluting the environment. There’s no gas pressure in an MSR and therefore no way for radiotoxins to be expelled into the environment.
The MSR fuel would simply cool until it’s a solid rock, and that solid rock should be entombed inside the reactor vessel. If the ship sinks, the MSR will remain in its box. A ship may be lost at sea and may sink to 8000 metres on the ocean floor, but even then, it would not pollute the environment.
How would conventions governing shipping need to change?
There are three main international conventions under the purview of the IMO: for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS); for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL); and on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW).
The key part of IMO regulations related to nuclear ships and nuclear propulsion is under SOLAS. Chapter 8 has a resolution on the operation of nuclear ships, which was passed almost unanimously by all members of the IMO in 1981. It’s getting kind of dusty now because it’s predominantly written for the PWRs of the 1970s, so it needs modernising.
It’s a matter of reviewing and amending existing rules to make them relevant to new and better technologies, and not about writing new rules, but it still takes time. The IMO is a UN agency and any proposal to amend a convention needs to be brought by flag states; we can’t do it alone as a private sector industry, but we are building the early support for maritime applications of advanced nuclear reactors from the most relevant nations already. The Convention on the Liability of Operators of Nuclear Ships (1962) is also an important consideration.
What timeline are you working to?
The reactor development team aims to have a proof-of-concept for the MSR ready by around 2025. Before that, each member of the team has its own milestones. As the commercialisation architect for maritime applications, we at Core Power aim to have the first set of new classification (design and operational) rules for maritime assets available to the market by 2023.
These classification and insurance rules need to start to come together in different jurisdictions, and we aim for that to go into the 2024/2025 work stream at the IMO. The ensuing process should take about five years, which should correspond with demonstration projects at sea for the MSR by the turn of the decade.
How do you approach family-run shipping companies?
Family-run shipping companies dominate our industry and they think in terms of several future generations to come. Each of these companies knows that by the time the baton is handed to the next generation, it should be ‘future ready’. That’s the perfect environment for us to operate in.
Only the fittest survive in shipping and the ones that make the required transitions understand that it is not just about changes to technology, but also about changes to the entire business model. As far as adapting to the next generation, which will be living through the clean energy transition, let’s see who’s still left standing at the end of the day.
There will be new participants, and the way we do things will change. Advanced nuclear for commercial shipping is quite simply the closest to the ‘silver bullet’ we’ve ever been, both to solve the climate challenge and disrupt our industry at the same time. It has an inevitability to it.
Summary
- Molten salt reactor (MSR) technology has the potential to revolutionise the commercial shipping industry by making the largest ships faster, cleaner and more efficient, Core Power Chairman and CEO Mikal Bøe said in an interview with World Nuclear News.
- Advanced nuclear can easily provide 100% clean electric power to the ports they call in, which would change the commercial shipping industry’s contract with the international community in a hugely positive way.
- The MSR would keep powering these ships for their lifetime, which is around 30 years.
- Only the fittest survive in shipping and the ones that make the required transitions understand that it is not just about changes to technology, but also about changes to the entire business model.
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Source: world nuclear news
