Nuclear powered container ships?

They tried to make a nuclear powered plane as well.

The NB-36 was a modified B-36 Peacemaker. The crew cabin weighed 11 tons and had 12″ glass in the windows.
Everytime it flew it was followed by a transport loaded with paratroopers who were tasked with cordoning off the area if it crashed – rather them than me!

paratroopers who were tasked with cordoning off the area if it crashed – rather them than me!

K19- widowmaker anyone

Thankfully the NB 36 didn’t power the aircraft. It was a test vehicle with a nuclear reactor on board to test the operation of a nuclear powered reactor on board an aircraft and the effectiveness of the shielding of the reactor. It never actually powered the aircraft.

The propositions were pretty scary really. The intention was to build two test vehicles a closed loop test vehicle where air was sucked into the engine, compressed and heated up by a closed loop heat exchanger with the heated and radioactive medium being circulated within the heat exchanger thus heating up the compressed air instead of fuel and it being expanded through turbine and nozzle to produce thrust. The idea being the jet efflux would not be radioactive, but you’re carrying the extra weight and complexity of the heat exchanger.

The second just took in air, compressed it before passing it directly through the actual nuclear reactor to heat it up and ejected it through the turbine and nozzle, so radioactive jet efflux. Thank god the project never got off the drawing board.

Think the Russian had a go too but didn’t get any further than the yanks.

Anyway are we not on the verge of making a breakthrough with Fusion?

are we not on the verge of making a breakthrough with Fusion?

Of course we are. We always are.

I was convinced that somewhere in the deep recess of my memory that Yamaha once made a portable suitcase sized nuclear powered generator for civilian use. Subsequent Google-ing says I got that completely wrong.
The closest I found was the small suitcase sized Russian radioactive sources used to power remote lighthouses that have subsequently been smashed open and stolen since the fall of THE USSR.

For full mental nuclear propelled vehicle we have:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

If you thought the other options in this thread were possibly a bit “messy” this thing is on another level. Shame really as scaled down (non nuke) models showed it would likely have worked.

The nuclear aircraft program was mad.

The logic was fairly sound. It would have meant that you could have them airborne for longer than conventional planes and so there was less risk of them being taken out by a first strike. Luckily the alternative options of subs and ballistic missiles became available early enough that the planes got abandoned.
There are some worrying indications Russia is currently building and trying to test a nuclear cruise missile.

^^ Nuclear powered you mean? I seem to remember reading something about that too.

Everytime it flew it was followed by a transport loaded with paratroopers who were tasked with cordoning off the area if it crashed – rather them than me!

In the dim and very distant past I worked in a naval base and had a special pass that would get me back in if there was a general evacuation due to a nuclear incident.

Aye, right, I’ll be down there as soon as I can…

I was convinced that somewhere in the deep recess of my memory that Yamaha once made a portable suitcase sized nuclear powered generator

From memory, back in the halcyon days of nuclear power before people fully understood the implications of handling the fuel and disposing of it safely etc – all the minor details of nuclear power that don’t really matter – this was the vision.

Every household would have a small nuclear reactor providing them with unlimited, essentially free everything and their lives would be perfect forever.

So it is not unlikely that firms were at least coming up with proof of concept designs etc.

Then the reality of nuclear power and the pesky health and safety bods got involved and decided it was a silly idea to have reactors in every home…

The nuclear aircraft program was mad.

The reactor wasn’t shielded, only the crew compartment was, so everything it overflew was going to get irradiated. A Vulcan going over at 100ft would rattle your tea cup, these things could give you a really bad day just for being on the way to a target.

Nice edit of Sevmorpout at work. One day I’ll get to go to Murmansk and go visit the Lenin which is now a museum ship.

Well given most of the nuclear industry seems to be run that way these days you tell me.

I did. Here:

Fair, but that’s much more easily monitored and heavily government controlled/regulated than a ship could be.

Had you actually read all the information in front of you, you’d have seen that. I do hope you pay more attention to your technical manuals… 😉

From memory, back in the halcyon days of nuclear power before people fully understood the implications of handling the fuel and disposing of it safely etc – all the minor details of nuclear power that don’t really matter – this was the vision.

Every household would have a small nuclear reactor providing them with unlimited, essentially free everything and their lives would be perfect forever.

Not far away from Rolls Royce’s suggestion for local power

I’d personally rather see more non nuclear, tidal baseload with gravity smoothing
here and
here

So it is not unlikely that firms were at least coming up with proof of concept designs etc.

There was the Ford Nucleon

Had you actually read all the information in front of you, you’d have seen that.

I was replying to most of a thread and jumping about the place trying to keep it coherent, no need to be rude.

As far as regulation goes I’m not sure I necessarily agree, any host port would be demanding compliance (and evidence thereof) with the clear understanding that it would be shut down if it failed to meet international regulations. The IMO and WANO are both UN agencies so it’s not unfeasible to suggest that a regulatory framework could be put in place.

What’s more likely is individual nations banning nuclear powered vessels from their waters, I can’t see Germany allowing a nuclear container ship up the Elbe into central Hamburg. That’s an altogether bigger hurdle to cross.

In the dim and very distant past I worked in a naval base and had a special pass that would get me back in if there was a general evacuation due to a nuclear incident.

Aye, right, I’ll be down there as soon as I can…

I have one of those too as an emergency team member, as you say…