THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR PROPULSION FOR MARITIME APPLICATIONS. DIGEST

The report is an executive digest of three economic evaluations which have been conducted over the past year by the Maritime Administration. These studies have provided detailed data on the direct capital costs, installation costs, schedules, scopes of supply, fuel costs, and refueling costs of currently offered pressurized water reactors for maritime applications. These reactors could be installed as the steam generators for ship propulsion plants with commercial operations commencing in 1971, providing a contract for construction is let by December, 1967. Although total ship costs and the total differentials between nuclear and conventional propulsion are not identified, it can be concluded that: (1) Certain of the plants proposed can be committed directly to commercial ship applications with reasonable uncertainties and risks. (2) Nuclear ship construction will be strongly influenced by the lead times involved in design, fabrication and installation of the reactor. Accordingly, the first nuclear ship construction spans will be about four years. (3) Fuel performance projections appear reasonable. Based, on the designs proposed, initial core lifetimes of four to five years, at an annual plant load factor of 70%, should be achievable. (4) Three to four refuelings will be required over the 25-year economic lifetime of a nuclear ship on the basis of the reactor designs proposed. These refuelings will take, on the average, about 21 days to accomplish. (Author)

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Prepared in cooperation with Maritime Administration, Washington, D.C. See also MRIS #026994, 026995 and PB-169935.
• Corporate Authors:

  NUS Corporation

  Washington, DC  United States 
• Publication Date: 1967-2

Media Info

• Pagination: 57 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economics; Electric power plants; Nuclear power; Nuclear power plants; Ships; Vehicle design
• Uncontrolled Terms: Ship design
• Old TRIS Terms: Power plant economics
• Subject Areas: Design; Economics; Marine Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00027058
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: NUS-339
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 4 1973 12:00AM