Nuclear cruise ships.

[hobie33]

Now that ships are getting so big and consume 4 tons of fuel per pax on a seven day cruise, would you sail on a nuclear power cruise ship?

Pros :cheap energy, on pollution, no need to stop for fuel, 200.000 American sailors do it every day.

cons : none.

Alex.

[FitzLA]

Con. Military ships are always targets. When you sign up, you sign up to become a target.

 

Cruise ships are for vacations, and I don't think anyone would like to take a vacation knowing that they have just signed on to become and even larger target than before. JMHO

[smoosh21]

Now that ships are getting so big and consume 4 tons of fuel per pax on a seven day cruise, would you sail on a nuclear power cruise ship?

Pros :cheap energy, on pollution, no need to stop for fuel, 200.000 American sailors do it every day.

cons : none.

Alex.

 

I think the con would be a major terrorist target. That would be a lot of fissionable fuel they could steal, and I don't think security on a cruise ship is as good as it is in the US Navy. Additionally, can you imagine the liability for any kind of problem that could occur with the engines?

 

It is an interesting idea though, it seems that the cruiselines are going to need to something with conventional fuel costs soaring.

[hobie33]

I think the con would be a major terrorist target. That would be a lot of fissionable fuel they could steal, and I don't think security on a cruise ship is as good as it is in the US Navy. Additionally, can you imagine the liability for any kind of problem that could occur with the engines?

 

It is an interesting idea though, it seems that the cruiselines are going to need to something with conventional fuel costs soaring.

 

That's an intelligent answer, but the fuel from a ship reactor can't be converted to nuclear bomb, the navy had nuclear power for twenty years no casualties till now. if terrorist want to hijack a ship the kind off power plant won't make a diff to them. still the Q the same, would you sail on one?

Alex.

[dforeigner]

Now that ships are getting so big and consume 4 tons of fuel per pax on a seven day cruise, would you sail on a nuclear power cruise ship?

Pros :cheap energy, on pollution, no need to stop for fuel, 200.000 American sailors do it every day.

cons : none.

Alex.

 

Although I see your point, I doubt many countries would allow these ships to get near their ports for fear of a terrorist attach. Dry runs have already occurred in Europe with cargo and tanker ships.

[mikedw]

Very few ports would allow a nuclear ship in unfortunately. I served onboard two different submarines in the US navy and I know the level of training that the guys in the engine room had, if you think NCL is having some problems having to pay US wages on there ships around Hawaii, just wait til some cruiseline would have to pay a 100 or so former navy nuclear propulsion technicians. There the only ones with the training and I'm sure they would command top dollar. Maybe one day though if they can simplify the process and make it safer.

 

Michael

[hobie33]

Very few ports would allow a nuclear ship in unfortunately. I served onboard two different submarines in the US navy and I know the level of training that the guys in the engine room had, if you think NCL is having some problems having to pay US wages on there ships around Hawaii, just wait til some cruiseline would have to pay a 100 or so former navy nuclear propulsion technicians. There the only ones with the training and I'm sure they would command top dollar. Maybe one day though if they can simplify the process and make it safer.

 

Michael

 

Hi,

I do yacht delivery in the caribbean and Atlantic crossings, our chief engineer makes 96k a year and second engineer makes 70k without the benefits, will this will get some navy guy's interested?

Alex.

[BearySweet2Cruise]

To answer the OP original Q: No, I would not support or sail on a ship that is nuclear powered, nor would I ever imagine that this would even happen in the modern day cruise world.

 

As a correction, I could never imagine that the ship would use 4 tons of fuel PER PAX.. (as you stated in your original post) that is not even a realistic possibility, in my mind, as the number of passangers multiplied by 4 TONS EACH would significantly weigh more than the weight of the ship itself. :eek: I do not buy this plan at all...

[hobie33]

To answer the OP original Q: No, I would not support or sail on a ship that is nuclear powered, nor would I ever imagine that this would even happen in the modern day cruise world.

 

As a correction, I could never imagine that the ship would use 4 tons of fuel PER PAX.. (as you stated in your original post) that is not even a realistic possibility, in my mind, as the number of passangers multiplied by 4 TONS EACH would significantly weigh more than the weight of the ship itself. :eek: I do not buy this plan at all...

 

Did you ever ask why the ship don't turn over? answer is fuel that sits in the bilges of the ship, when consumed is being replace with sea water.

Now 4 times 2000 makes 8000 tones, correct? gross tonnage is about 60.000 tons, not the volume of the ship that make the publish tonnage of 91.000 tons. yes that what it takes to move, cook , make water, electricity, ice, a/c etc. I can go forever about tonnage, but you will miss the buffet.

Alex.

[BearySweet2Cruise]

Ok. so if your theory can be validated, I ask you this:

 

If using the "standard pricing" basic rule of thumb of $100.00 per person per day on a 7 night cruise, you are suggesting that 4 tons of fuel can be bought for your cruise fare of $700.00 and the ship can still make a profit??:confused:

 

I can buy the theory that as fuel is used, sea water replaces used fuel consumption in a specific holdiong tank for balance and stabilization..

but I cannot see that it would take 4 tons of fuel PER PERSON for a 7 night cruise.. Way too excessive in my opinion

 

Oh.. and I do NOT wanna miss the buffet :)

[wraithe]

Did you ever ask why the ship don't turn over? answer is fuel that sits in the bilges of the ship, when consumed is being replace with sea water.

Now 4 times 2000 makes 8000 tones, correct? gross tonnage is about 60.000 tons, not the volume of the ship that make the publish tonnage of 91.000 tons. yes that what it takes to move, cook , make water, electricity, ice, a/c etc. I can go forever about tonnage, but you will miss the buffet.

Alex.

 

Alex, couple things, we tried the nuclear powered passenger/cargo vessel in the 60's and early 70's. The NS Savannah was built to characterize the peaceful uses of atomic energy. More on that later. FWIW, GRT which is how RCL measures the tonnage of their ships is a measure of volume, not actual weight as you said. Whereas naval vessels are registered by actual displacement weight. Notes from Radiance indicate the 90,200 GRT works out to about 38,000 displacement tons. Radiance burns about 215 tons/day at sea of kerosene. My notes from Grandeur say she uses 230 tons of oil/day when running all 4 engines, and can reduce that by 25% if able to secure one of her diesels and operate at reduced speeds (20 knots vs. 24). Quick calcuation indicates about .115 ton/passenger/day (only using 2000 pax) or .8 tons/passenger/week. The "efficiency" goes up for Voyager class, and probably more for Freedom class, since there are many more pax per horsepower.

 

Naval nuclear vessels use fuel that is weapons grade, the NS Savannah used about 5% enriched fuel which is not nearly weapons grade, the disadvantage being that the power plant is huge in comparison to naval plants. As someone else mentioned, the main things that doomed the Savannah and the German "civilian" nuke were the unions, the Engineers wanted more money since they were doing a much more difficult job than conventional ship's engineers. When they went on strike and eventually got the extra money, then the "navigation" officers got mad and struck since they were used to getting more than the engineers. Couple that with lack of cargo carrying ability, few ports would allow her in, and lack of room for pax and she was a "failure". Overall, Savannah spent more time in port than at sea, and eventually was defueled, turned into a museum for a while, and is now in the James River, VA ghost fleet.

 

Here's one story: NS Savannah and here is another Wikipedia story. I have a couple brochures from the Savannah when she was in Charleson and I toured her. I also have a couple books on civilian nuclear power for shipping. "Nuclear Ship Propulsion" and "Nuclear Propulsion for Merchant Ships" which was written by the US AEC about Savannah's power plant. I operated Naval Nuclear Power Plants for 20 years, and they are quite safe, but the training of operators and maintenance of nuclear power plants are still cost prohibitive for civilian use.

[johnjen]

I support the idea that nuclear cruise ships might become more of a target of terrorism than conventional ships, but I think that cruise liners will become more fuel efficient in the years ahead. Nuclear power has taken so much criticism, however, even though the days of nuclear accidents are probably well on the decrease as nuclear technology improves.

 

Someone in the thread mentioned that the navy has not had any nuclear accidents to this point. There were two that I know about. One was onboard the USS Seawolf, a submarine, when she was outfitted with a prototype breeder reactor that used liquid sodium as coolant, and they had a minor spill. Result: no deaths.

 

At Idaho Falls, the navy's training reactor, there were three deaths where one of the men was pinned by a rod that was ejected which was caused by a pressure explosion within the reactor.

 

I learned of both of these accidents during my 20 years in the navy. Both accidents are unclassified, but the majority of the public are unaware.

[la_croisiere_s'amuse]

Alex, couple things . . .

 

Wraithe to the rescue! :D I just knew you'd chime in here before long.

 

As a side note . . . that's another thing I love about the CC community. Getting to know everybody's areas of expertise, knowing whose posts to look for, sometimes even who to direct questions to . . . it's a happy thing. :)

 

 

[madforcruising]

I´m not an expert on this topic by any means but of course I have an opinion.

 

First of all no I would not cruise on such a ship.

 

I doubt that that it´s cheaper to run a cruise ship on nuclear power than on fuel/diesel/oil. Even at the increased cost of oil I guess that the cost to build the nuclear power plant into the ship, with all those security measures, personal for operating needed and of course think about what to do with this highly dangerous nuclear stuff after the ship is going to be scrapped would let the cost skyrocket.

 

And here we go to your list of pros and cons. I highly disagree about the no pollution statement. Yes there´s no air polution but the nuclear stuff polutes the environment for hundreds if not thousands of years.

 

So this would be a big con to me and not a pro. Another con is accidents happen with conventional engines and with nuclear power engines but an accident with a nuclear power driven ship would be a million times worse.

 

The reason for an accident must not necessarily be with the nuclear power plant. It would be enough for the ship to run aground and sinking or having a fire onboard........

 

Just think about the recent Sea Diamond accident and the ship sinking right at Santorini. If this ship had a nuclear power plant onboard they wouldn´t have the oil spilling out now poluting the sea but instead they would have a nuclear power plant on the ground sending out radioactive radiation for how many years???

 

Or think about fire on Star Princess, this could have been worse and spread out through all ship and make it sink....

 

Well I think you get that I don´t think it´s a good idea, regardless how many American sailors do it every day.

[madforcruising]

Just one thing I forgot.

 

At almost every Captain´s Corner onboard some guy comes up to ask about the ships using nuclear power sometimes in the future and the reaction of the Captain and Engineers is always the same...

traing to hide their laughter and simply answering NO and proceeding to the next question.;)

[RichardK]

The initial cost of installing nuclear propulsion and gas fired electric propulsion are both considerable. However, nuclear propulsion is far more expensive to install.

 

Con: Nuclear powered craft are designed to have service life spans of @40 years. They just retired the Nimitz Class Carrier, the Kennedy, after how may years? Since cruise ships have a much shorter service life (i.e., at least during which time that they're “popular”, and can command higher fares) before they are sold or relocated to be used out of the mainstream cruise-vacation arena --- to put in nuclear propulsion is just not economically feasible.

[isujim]

I support the idea that nuclear cruise ships might become more of a target of terrorism than conventional ships, but I think that cruise liners will become more fuel efficient in the years ahead. Nuclear power has taken so much criticism, however, even though the days of nuclear accidents are probably well on the decrease as nuclear technology improves.

 

Someone in the thread mentioned that the navy has not had any nuclear accidents to this point. There were two that I know about. One was onboard the USS Seawolf, a submarine, when she was outfitted with a prototype breeder reactor that used liquid sodium as coolant, and they had a minor spill. Result: no deaths.

 

At Idaho Falls, the navy's training reactor, there were three deaths where one of the men was pinned by a rod that was ejected which was caused by a pressure explosion within the reactor.

 

I learned of both of these accidents during my 20 years in the navy. Both accidents are unclassified, but the majority of the public are unaware.

 

 

Actually anyone remember the USS Threasher (sp) submarine lost at sea.......

[RichardK]

Actually anyone remember the USS Threasher (sp) submarine lost at sea.......

 

Not to be argumentative, but I believe that the Thresher imploded doing deep-dive trials off of New England. She was a nuclear powered sub, correct, but that was not the reason she was lost.

[isujim]

Not to be argumentative, but I believe that the Thresher imploded doing deep-dive trials off of New England. She was a nuclear powered sub, correct, but that was not the reason she was lost.

 

 

I appreciate that...............I was very young then:) ........never mind factual correction..........thanks.

[wraithe]

And here we go to your list of pros and cons. I highly disagree about the no pollution statement. Yes there´s no air polution but the nuclear stuff polutes the environment for hundreds if not thousands of years.

 

So this would be a big con to me and not a pro. Another con is accidents happen with conventional engines and with nuclear power engines but an accident with a nuclear power driven ship would be a million times worse.

 

Just think about the recent Sea Diamond accident and the ship sinking right at Santorini. If this ship had a nuclear power plant onboard they wouldn´t have the oil spilling out now poluting the sea but instead they would have a nuclear power plant on the ground sending out radioactive radiation for how many years???

 

Or think about fire on Star Princess, this could have been worse and spread out through all ship and make it sink....

 

Con: Nuclear powered craft are designed to have service life spans of @40 years. They just retired the Nimitz Class Carrier, the Kennedy, after how may years? Since cruise ships have a much shorter service life (i.e., at least during which time that they're “popular”, and can command higher fares) before they are sold or relocated to be used out of the mainstream cruise-vacation arena --- to put in nuclear propulsion is just not economically feasible.

 

Actually anyone remember the USS Threasher (sp) submarine lost at sea.......

 

1) There have been two US nukes lost at sea, Thresher and Scorpion, neither due to the nuclear power plant, I'm not quibbling here, Thresher probably had an engine room problem, but it wasn't the nuke plant that caused her loss. That said, they are both regularly checked for radiation or fission product leakage, and nothing has ever been recorded about either ship leaking anything nuclear.

 

2) Power plants are designed for the life they are going to see. Older naval nuke plants were designed to be refueled since the plants couldn't last that long. Now, due to technological progress, the power plants last longer and the ships useful life isn't as long, so the plant is designed to go for the life of the ship, and never be refueled. It wouldn't be hard to design a power plant that would only last for 12 years with an expected useful life of 10 if that's what the customer wanted. Advantage: the reactor would be smaller.

 

3) Kennedy was an oil fired carrier, not nuclear, and wasn't a Nimitz class ship, we have not decommed a nuclear aircraft carrier, Enterprise is the first and is still steaming. We have decommed many submarines, cruisers, and prototypes. If we weren't so silly about one use fuel process, we could do like the French (and Germans) and reclaim good fuel from spent fuel rods and make the remaining waste much smaller by volumer and radioactive for a much shorter time. Thanks to Jimmy Carter, our only nuclear trained president, we don't have breeder reactors or fuel reclamation, or the SST, or a lot of other things, and he still won't shut up. Oops, sorry for the rant.

 

4) FWIW, the radiation dose that I received while operating power plants is probably significantly less than what the average person receives from natural objects. Cigarettes for instance, smoking a pack a day gives 5 Rem alpha radiation directly to the lungs over the couse of a year. Many rocks are natural radiation emitters, so living on a rocky mountain top may be beautiful, but fill your basement with radon, and leave traces of radioactive materials and gas in that spring you drink out of on the mountain trail. Would that stop me from living on a mountain, or drinking from the stream, not a chance, but I'd check for radon and mitigate it if I found it, I wouldn't make the steam my only source of water until I tested it. Don't let a little knowledge be dangerous, learn as much as you can and nuke power isn't scary at all.

[joetrizeo]

Nuclear technology for ships private sector? i dont think so...

 

any remember people, it's the nuclear engineer's responsability to think of every 'what if' you are proposing ;)

[joetrizeo]

Con. Military ships are always targets. When you sign up, you sign up to become a target.

 

Cruise ships are for vacations, and I don't think anyone would like to take a vacation knowing that they have just signed on to become and even larger target than before. JMHO

 

terrorists kill innocent civilians because they are innocent civilians. They don't target nuclear installations and ignore diesel because they're nuclear...whatever kills people.

 

that being said cruise ships, while might appear to be 'sitting ducks' are very undesirable terrorists targets. 1) the cruise ship is fast and can outrun any small boat with 10 rocket wielding terrorists on it. 2) they DO have defense mechanisims (sonic gun IE) 3) if the USS cole happened to the Mariner, the ship would not sink and all the passengers would simply muster out of there. 4) security is relatively high on ships. 5) if i heard the captain right, the ships radar can track targets up to a 70 mile radius. enough time to see any rogue ships headed our way

[bobthek]

Wraithe,

Thanks for posting facts, not only opinions.

I enjoyed the technology/history lesson.

The failure of the NS Savannah indicates that public opinion (fear) of nuclear technology would still be an issue today. I do not think that the general public would accept a nuclear powered cruise ship no matter how the economics would turn out.

[RichardK]

Kennedy was an oil fired carrier, not nuclear, and wasn't a Nimitz class ship, we have not decommed a nuclear aircraft carrier, Enterprise is the first and is still steaming.

 

Thinking back and reviewing what you said -- you are absolutely 100% right -- and I stand corrected.

 

Given a West Point "upbringing", I guess I should keep my mouth shut when it comes to Navy stuff, ya think?

 

Do I get a "rim shot" at least re: the Thresher? :)

[silentbob007]

Wraithe,

Thanks for posting facts, not only opinions.

I enjoyed the technology/history lesson.

The failure of the NS Savannah indicates that public opinion (fear) of nuclear technology would still be an issue today. I do not think that the general public would accept a nuclear powered cruise ship no matter how the economics would turn out.

 

When someone asked this at the past-guest party on the Voyager recently, Captain Gerry stated two reasons why no nuclear ships: people would not want to sail on it and problems with disposing waste.