July 22, 2009

Commercial Shipping Uses 9% of world oil and is Major Air Pollution Source

Air pollution from commercial shipping kills 60,000 people per year.

Converting all commercial ships to run on nuclear power would be economic even without considering carbon taxes or fees.

In 2000, there were 6800 container ships in the world. At the cold war peak the Soviets had or had almost built about 400 nuclear powered ships and the USA had over 200.

Factory mass produced small nuclear reactors like the one being developed by Hyperion Power Generation or variants of the pebble bed reactor being made in China or new liquid flouride thorium reactor proposals would all work for total nuclearizing commercial shipping. There would also be the benefit that the ships would need to rarely stop for refueling and in general could operate at faster speed.

The slid show below presents more on commercial shipping and pollution and discusses more conventional ways to make it a little cleaner.





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