I don’t know how many nuclear vessels we command. 5 (or 7? 9?) carrier groups, so there is guaranteed at least one nuclear-powered carrier apiece. A number of nuclear submarines around the world are poised to unleash mass destruction on our enemies should we need it. Maybe those are a little redundant and some can be sailed in.
Do we have nuclear-powered AEGIS? Destroyers? I don’t know what we have or how many. What would happen if we pulled some in, attached those reactors to the grid and flooded the market with cheap nuclear power? Wouldn’t that boost production, and therefore probably consumption of energy, and stimulate the economy? Or not…?
There are ten Nimitz Class supercarriers, each one powered by two of these. The A4W reactors produce about a hundred megawatts each.
By comparison, the Three Mile Island complex produces about 1900 megawatts total, or ten times the power of one supercarrier. It would take all the Nimitz-class carriers together to equal one TMI. There are 104 licensed nuclear reactors running in the US today, some bigger and some smaller than the TMI reactors.
So, I suspect that the supply provided by naval reactors would not have a huge effect on local energy prices.
Also keep in mind that most of energy of the carrier’s reactors is driving the shafts, not generating electricity. According to this article, the electric generators only put out a total of 64MW.
Also, the naval reactors are designed to meet different specifications, so they are not as efficient as land-based nuclear power plants. (For example, power plants aren’t concerned with the weight of the reactor, nor fitting it in the smallest space possible.)
So if we wanted to flood the market with cheap nuclear power, it would be much more sensible to build several more land-based power plants. We could even scrap those 10 carriers and their $1 million/day operating cost each and use that money to get started.
Hm. What if a great number of ships were assembled and the nuclear power utilized to build a pipeline then pump filthy wastewater out of the Gulf and into the Earth in Texas and Oklahoma to extract natural gas without stressing local freshwater supplies. Could it pay for itself?
Again, land-based pumping stations would be more efficient.
And what do you mean by a “great number of ships”?
There simply aren’t that many nuclear-powered ships in the US & UK navies (and I don’t think that are any at all in other navies). Ten carriers, a few carrier escort vessels, a few submarines, and that’s it.
The UK only has nuclear powered submarines. The French navy has an aircraft carrier and submarines, while the Russia has a couple cruisers, submarines, ice-breakers and one cargo ship. Think that’s it.
They’re also not cheap to operate. I don’t know that there are any publicity available figures that document the energy production cost per megawatt, but I can pretty much guarantee that the cost of operating compact naval reactors is much higher than larger commercial power production reactors just by scale alone.
So much for “flood[ing] the market with cheap nuclear power.”
That isn’t going to matter anymore. Two words: conservative education.
Anyway, these drilling techniques have been granted a governmental dispensation from EPA rules. That right there ought to clue you in to the fact that this is perfectly safe. If it starts out as freshwater, it is contaminated by pumping it into the well, but some of it stays down (which no one ever has to think about ever again), and some of it comes back up, which is tanked and disposed of. No problem. If it starts out as contaminated Gulf water, some of it stays down and the rest is tanked and disposed of. No problem.
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter… It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.” Lewis L. Strauss (09/16/54)
At some point, probably 50-100 years hence, when fusion power generates our necessary electricity, this will prove to be prophetic. Off by a century, maybe, but true.
Gulf water is salt water. Salt water kills on land. Whatever salt water escapes during the process contaminates the land, and also any fresh water resources that it enters. So your plan involves building huge pipelines from the Gulf hundreds of miles inward in order to destroy everything it touches.
Somehow I don’t think the EPA has granted a dispensation for this.
Even the dispensation the EPA actually did so for freshwater is suspect.
Whenever you think you have a great new idea for solving the energy crisis, here’s what you do. Roll over, go back to to sleep and dream about something else. And don’t mention it to anyone the next day.
I’d say because we need fresh water (all over the world) more than we need submarines. And since one main impediment to desalination plants is the intense energy demands, nuclear power plants should be a great way to generate the necessary energy.
Are we hung up on the technology aspect or something?
The OP as I read it, apart from the now-dismantled nuclear aircraft carrier idea, is an interesting one.
What happens if/when we invent a source of energy whose cost is essentially negligible?
Doesn’t this just shift the resource limitation to minerals and food, material goods to serve as inputs to what must become a voracious industrial economy? Is everyone going to just start fighting over (I don’t know) lithium and copper instead of oil?
