Thread 16838741

Is this economically viable?

>>16838741 (OP)
Fuck of chinkshill

>>16838741 (OP)
what a high quality thread dipshit
>no link
>no names
>lazy fucker screenshot
>no doi

>>16838746
It's a copy paste from pol by a bot.

>>16838741 (OP)
No.

Commercial ships are scrapped around the 30 year mark, and the biggest ones that can't operate in any shit hole Asian port get retired a decade earlier.

You don't need to build a thorium reactor for a cargo ship with a 20 year lifespan.

>>16838741 (OP)
A large cargo container ship has a fuel costs of ~$30M/year, operating close to 300 days. Over 30 years period, thats $900M.

US Navy builds 800 megawatt of nuclear power for carriers for $2 billion dollars. But since cargo ships dont need 800 MW, they can run off of ~50MW-100Mw small nuclear reactor, it would likely costs $100-$300M, so economically they are viable. Thats china tho, for US, this cost might double or triple.

>>16838741 (OP)
China number one!

>why you can trust SCMP
literal CCP propaganda mouthpiece

>>16838804
And to add to this, a new container ship in China prob costs ~$50M, so with a small nuclear one, the cost would be ~$150M. But within 1 year, you cut that 150M - 30M and its $120M discount, then in 2 years its $90M, 3 years, its $60M. It literally pays for itself within ~3 years of operation in fuel savings.

>>16838824
it doesn't because you also have to pay to have qualified engineering staff on hand to operate it 24/7 and your insurance rates go through the roof.
this shit would already have been happening a long time ago were it economically viable

>>16838833
You also have to pay qualified engineers to maintain the fuel as well.

>shit would already have been happening a long time ago
Thorium only recently became viable to China, and is the first country in the world. So they're doing their first of thorium ship building. And in order of there to be a "already have been happening", you need a starting point, this is the starting point.

>>16838804
>anon doesn't understand the concept of cost of money-time (credit)
>ignores the fact the goverment hides a lot of cost, an external customer will have to pay extra (the full price) for the research, fuel, construction, decommissioning, maintenance and safety inspections, profit
And that is ignoring the possible future of methane/a different source that will come online during that 30 years period.

>>16838860
It doesn't matter if you want to deny it, China is moving forward with their reality. They have built thorium reactors and they are being commercialized.

Russia has commercial nuclear icebreakers. I've no idea why they didn't build a nuclear cargo ship. Not profitable?

>>16838917
the icebreakers are cargo ships

>>16838917
Russians dont have the economy of scale to make use of their ships. China however does.

>>16838824
A nuclear reactor is a large pot in which a hot stone boils water. So just have the reactor section fully compartmentalized, ready for the hulk around it to be dismantled without affecting the reactor. Then you just reuse it on a new ship. Shrimple as.

>>16838741 (OP)
>>16838804
>there are over 100,000 cargo ships in the world
>more than half are Chinese
>as older cargo ships are retired and newer, more efficient ones go on the market, more of the world's fleet will be Chinese

Even if we assume only half of the world's fleet are "large" cargo ships, and that the "average" fuel cost is $15M/year instead of $30, that's $1.5T in fuel spent every year.

Imagine China being able to shave a trillion off fuel cost in ships every year with thorium.

>>16839366
The real number is ~10 times less and you're ignoring the fact people uses fuel oil because it's a "residue".
>Energy use in shipping has increased by 5%, with the sector's oil consumption reaching 4.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2023.
>~75 dollars per barrel of fuel oil

>>16838746
>publication name (SCMP)
>article title
All the information you need is right there

>>16838804
US naval reactors are PWRs. The supposed advantages of MSRs is that they're cheaper because they can operate at near-ambient pressure and thus don't require heavy forgings. They're also supposed to be idiot-proof so you don't need a lot of expensive technicians. Furthermore, the fuel-coolant-waste liquid is terribly impractical for making nukes or even dirty bombs, so you don't need a lot of expensive guards.

>>16838772
You'd probably design a nuclear-powered ship to run for longer

>>16838917
Pressurized water reactors are too expensive to build and operate for use in normal cargo ships

>>16838772
I have seen some suggestions to build the power plant so that it can be removed from the ship and placed into a new one, so each plant serves 2 or 3 ships over its life

If you're gonna spend +500 million per ship then just use batteries, those ships can recharge in a lot of ports during loading/unloading.

>>16838746
An article without paywall
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/thorium-powered-nuclear-cargo-ship
Beware, however, that the article appears to have been written by a technically illiterate retard

>>16839663
>build the power plant so that it can be removed from the ship
Yes, that is exactly the idea. The reactor will be in a sealed module that is returned to the factory once every 10 years.

>>16838746
An article without paywall
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/thorium-powered-nuclear-cargo-ship
Beware, however, that the article appears to have been written by a technologically illiterate retard

>>16839663
>build the power plant so that it can be removed from the ship
Yes, that is exactly the idea. The reactor will be in a sealed module that is returned to the factory once every 10 years.

Why don't we have something like trails and trains but on sea? Like a line crossing the ocean and you just feed it with containers and the containers go by themselves, like a chairlift, someone picks up on the other port.

>>16840369
why

>>16839262
>sinks immediately
How can it have sunk if it never ended up in the water?

>>16840369
Cost.
Maintenance cost to be more specific.

>>16838741 (OP)
Reminder that instead of doing stuff like this, the US was mass circumcised, fluoridated, clamped, vaccinated, etc.

>>16838833
>>16838836
Then again
>Why yes, we could technically buy some jet tickets and limit operation to something reasonable within SEA/Qatar
>SEA fleet is then maintained by like 10 people at some HQ, flying around
On the other end of the scale, some larger economic hipping groups are also experimenting with going back to sailing, with just the technology of the 2020s instead of the pre 1940s.

>>16838741 (OP)
massive emergency radioactive molten salt dumps

>>16842041
Are they using those big spinning columns or something else?