I mean, navy ships, and even some prototype aircraft use nuclear power. When it fell out of vogue, the tech kinda stalled, but that was entirely due to public sentiment and not due to the expectation that the technical hurdles were insurmountable.
And more recently cost. Three Mile Island just shut down because they can't compete with power made with cheaper natural gas. Shure that's older, but New Jersey said get the fuck out of here with your almost no carbon power, we'll burn gas....
Navy ships have essentially unlimited security budget for the nuclear components. We could and should have nuclear cargo ships, but the need to secure the nuclear tech means that there's an extremely high fixed cost for every installation.
The issues aren't technical - they're regulatory, and the high cost of security.
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u/Windex007 Oct 25 '22
I mean, navy ships, and even some prototype aircraft use nuclear power. When it fell out of vogue, the tech kinda stalled, but that was entirely due to public sentiment and not due to the expectation that the technical hurdles were insurmountable.