I’ve been toying with this concept and wanted to see what people think:
What if instead of making every cargo ship nuclear-powered (which is politically, economically, and technically messy), we build a small fleet of nuclear-powered assist vessels — operated by nuclear-capable navies — that meet conventional cargo ships just outside territorial waters?
These “NAVs” (Nuclear Assist Vessels) would:
• Tug or escort ships across oceans using nuclear propulsion
• Provide zero-emission propulsion across international waters
• Never enter ports or territorial zones, avoiding nuclear docking regulations
• Be overseen by military/naval authorities already trained in nuclear safety
• Offer anti-piracy protection along high-risk trade routes
Commercial ships would handle short-range trips to/from ports using conventional engines, but the bulk of their journey would be nuclear-assisted — reducing emissions, fuel costs, and global shipping’s carbon footprint.
I know this raises questions about militarization, nuclear safety, and international regulation — but if done right, this could be a game-changer for clean logistics and global trade security.
What do you think? Feasible? Too wild? Would love feedback or counterpoints.
Comments
The Russians are way ahead of you already…………..
its just nuclear cargoships with extra steps. the NS Savanah has run for Decades.
We do
Nuclear propulsion is expensive. It can provide huge military advantages, but it is never a “cheap” option.
Commercial ships do not benefit much from any of the advantages. They can buy fuel at their destinations, in an efficient supply chain. They do not need more endurance than just getting to the next port (plus a small margin). They do not need to operate underwater for potentially months at a time. So there is very little benefit to nuclear propulsion, with massive increase costs.
A single naval reactor costs more than a giant container ship.
Nuclear tugboats are all fine and dandy until you’re trying to tow a cargo ship through high seas without snapping a line or causing a capsize.
Keep in mind that there are axes of support and buoyancy and if you found yourself making a slackline turn of any sort you could literally pull the ship into capsizing.
Towing ships on the open water is trickier than you imagine. So now we’d have to allocate two or more tugboats to every main ship and now that’s three crews that we have to pay and feed and so forth.
There’s nothing magic about nuclear power. It’s got the same limits for prop size and total torque available and all that other stuff.
Why are these boats tugging other boats across the ocean…do you mean barges?
Sounds like a plan. Piracy is only going to get worse.
I love nuclear but I’m not a fan of putting them in a local where they would regulary be under risk for being destroyed and or unrecoverabley lost. I mean above and beyond the fact that major ships do sink at fairly regular intervals could you imagine what a war would look like? Imagine a few dozen exposed cores sitting at the bottom of the worlds oceans? I mean a Type 65 heavyweight torpedo would absolutely shread even the best protected reactor system and these ships would be high priority targets.
Here is the thing, if we built out our land nuclear systems to displace most of our most polluting coal and oil burners we could afford to use hydrocarbons to fuel naval assets with a large net negative in carbon.
who is going to clean up the mess when they fail