Yeah, like there's a reason the only portable nuclear reactors that exist are in fucking aircraft carriers and giant submarines (which are still dumb and bad). You don't want these things to have any possibility of collision, let alone the possibility of being hijacked.
I guess its not impractical in some sort of post revolution world but there's still the chance that one of these gets destroyed in an armed conflict and fucks up the ocean ecology in its vicinity.
Russian icebreakers are too, and they're much smaller than aircraft carriers.
The USSR also used small-scale nuclear reactors in their antarctic bases.
The real tragedy is the way we never used them for space propulsion - they're orders of magnitude better than chemical propulsion. Also, as usual with space stuff, the USSR's nuclear space engine, the RD-0410, was superior to the American NERVA.
Right now, cause it's fucking expensive. Both to build it and throughout its life. Training people to operate it safely is expensive, doing maintenance according to far stricter regulations is expensive, dealing with it 25 years down the line is expensive. Digging up a bunch more uranium wouldn't be very awesome for the people involved in that either.
Three people died testing a prototype, possibly a murder/suicide:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
This was the last time someone died in a reactor accident in the US
Edit: they also installed one reactor at the Army's secret ICBM ice lair in Greenland:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
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Yeah, like there's a reason the only portable nuclear reactors that exist are in fucking aircraft carriers and giant submarines (which are still dumb and bad). You don't want these things to have any possibility of collision, let alone the possibility of being hijacked.
just wait until the USA collapses in 2040 and Bezos appropriates the USS Gerald Ford
Real question though: Why can't we have nuclear ships? There's no reason why we can't have the seas not be powered by dead dinosaurs.
I guess its not impractical in some sort of post revolution world but there's still the chance that one of these gets destroyed in an armed conflict and fucks up the ocean ecology in its vicinity.
We do, actually. Some aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered.
Yeah, but container ships could be nuclear.
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Russian icebreakers are too, and they're much smaller than aircraft carriers.
The USSR also used small-scale nuclear reactors in their antarctic bases.
The real tragedy is the way we never used them for space propulsion - they're orders of magnitude better than chemical propulsion. Also, as usual with space stuff, the USSR's nuclear space engine, the RD-0410, was superior to the American NERVA.
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What are the implications of that? A whole bunch of nuclear subs sank. Did they fuck up the environment more than an oil tanker sinking would?
Right now, cause it's fucking expensive. Both to build it and throughout its life. Training people to operate it safely is expensive, doing maintenance according to far stricter regulations is expensive, dealing with it 25 years down the line is expensive. Digging up a bunch more uranium wouldn't be very awesome for the people involved in that either.
Three people died testing a prototype, possibly a murder/suicide: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 This was the last time someone died in a reactor accident in the US
Edit: they also installed one reactor at the Army's secret ICBM ice lair in Greenland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
This was the last time someone died in a reactor accident in the US... so far!
The Soviets actually did it: https://habr.com/en/company/mailru/blog/370363/
Kit-based reactors aren't entirely undeveloped technology.