Nuclear propulsion innovation for the maritime industry
Achieving the goal of equipping merchant ships with zero-emission technology that can rival heavy fuel oil without relying on subsidies is a formidable challenge.
The Nuclear Propulsion for Merchant Ship (NuProShip) project, which builds on pre-2021 research, underscores the necessity of integrating nuclear propulsion into the maritime industry to facilitate a genuine energy transition.
This groundbreaking technology, being entirely novel, holds significant scientific value. Given that deep-sea fleets are major contributors to marine emissions, the potential societal impact is substantial, with the project aiming to cut down up to 2% of global climate emissions.
In the framework of the project and being IDOM, KTH and NTNU awarded with the activities related to the Nuclear Island, one of the key issues was to analyze which reactor would be the most suitable to be implemented in a ship withstanding very demanding conditions in terms of movements, accelerations, refueling periods, operation, etc.
The development of the selection process over 80 reactor designs detailed in the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) SMR Handbook and the NEA (Nuclear Energy Agency) SMR Dashboard, was performed considering one of the best qualitative methods for providing decision-support in multi-objective situations called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed in the late 1960s.
After the application of exclusion criteria to reduce the high number of candidates, a bunch of criteria and subcriteria was evaluated according to expert judgements. As a result of the AHP methodology, the three most ranked designs are:
- the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR), a High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) developed by Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation;
- the SEALER-55 which is in second place, is a Lead Fast-Cooled Reactor (LFR) developed by the Swedish company Blykalla;
- the Kairos Power Fluoride salt-cooled High temperature Reactor (KP-FHR), a high temperature Molten Salt Reactor (MSR).
This breakthrough promises to revolutionize the maritime industry, providing a sustainable and efficient solution to reduce global emissions and move towards a cleaner future.
