Comment by jasonwatkinspdx

Comment by jasonwatkinspdx 6 hours ago

2 replies

Total non starter.

Nuclear submarine power plants are not in any way a technology useful for utility scale power generation.

To start with they use fuel enriched to weapons grade.

They aren't cost effective vs the amount of power produced, and the designs don't scale up to utility scale power.

Submarine plants are not some sort of miracle SMR we can just roll out.

The Navy is willing to page cost premiums a utility company cannot, because for the Navy it's about having a necessary capability. There's no economic break even to consider.

[removed] 6 hours ago
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bobmcnamara 4 hours ago

I thought I'd mention that ship supplied short power has been a thing for ages. USS Daniel Webster even trained for this for new years eve apocalypse nothingburger. And its almost always been used for only powering something critical. Today's subs are <10MW. Nothing for utility scale. I can't imagine the economics are ever good. More of a: we've already got this boat.

https://thenaptimeauthor.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/the-uss-le...

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/11/26/A-nuclear-submarine-...

There are some floating PWRs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_pow...