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The bar's wine rack was inspired by the chart of the nuclides (bottom left). Clocks gave the time in locations around the world, a nod to the Savannah's international mission (bottom right). The service ship would have helicopter pads, firefighting equipment, rescue booms, workboats, autonomous surface vehicles and airborne drones, cranes, laboratories and a lecture lounge, the company said. Nuclear-powered ships could be coming to the world of cruising — but with a twist.
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It represents the volume of uranium fuel needed to let the Savannah travel 454,000 nautical miles– enough to circumnavigate the world well over a dozen times. Traveling the same distance with conventional fuel would have required approximately 28 million gallons of it. However, using nuclear power for cruise ships will be something that the public will need to consider and understand. The transition involves technological advancements and needs to address safety concerns, environmental implications, and societal acceptance. Submarines, aircraft carriers, and icebreakers have safely relied on nuclear power for years. Modern reactor designs, especially those like the LFRs, are equipped with built-in safety features that further enhance this security.
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In November of last year, its reactor was removed and taken to Utah for disposal. Koehler says full decommissioning of the ship's nuclear components will take another two years or so. At that point the Maritime Administration can dispose of the Savannah, Koehler says, but he hopes it will be protected. Government had built the Savannah as part of a program known as "Atoms for Peace," which sought to demonstrate the good that nuclear energy could do. Savannah's origin story began in the darkest days of the Cold War.
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Nuclear power plants have been used on military ships but almost never on passenger ships. A single nuclear-powered cargo vessel that also carried a small number of passengers, the NS Savannah, debuted in 1959 and operated for several years. It was built as a demonstration project with funding from the U.S. government.
A passenger stateroom included a porthole with a view, as well as a sofa, desk, bed and bathroom. "It's so important to start now, because the more we wait, the longer it will [take] before we are there," Muren said. "Thorium is a much nicer substance, and it produces very little waste compared to uranium [used in other reactors]," she said. "With uranium, you have a lot of waste that you have to take care of for ... thousands of years. For thorium, it is a couple of hundred years." Muren noted that thorium has relatively low radioactivity and produces radioactive waste that is easier to manage than the radioactive waste from more traditional uranium reactors.
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"It is, in effect, a crucial piece of infrastructure to support sustainable and safer operations. Thor literally has the power to change our entire industry." The all-electric cruise vessel that Ulstein proposes would be about 328 feet long and carry up to 80 passengers and 80 crew. It would be built extra tough to operate in polar areas with ice (it would have a 1C ice class rating).
Home to an active volcano and eight nesting seabirds, Deception Island is a wildlife lover’s paradise. The largest group of penguins in Antarctica, and possibly the world, is located here. This is your chance to witness tens of thousands of chinstrap penguins waddling about and slipping in and out of the frigid waters. The bridge of the NS Savannah, equipped with weather and communication instruments, would send orders to the reactor control room. “We understand that public perceptions of nuclear fear are mixed,” he said, adding that there are “misplaced fears around legacy nuclear.” But, he said, a newer generation of guests might be less encumbered with prejudice about nuclear. It could only be done from the reactor's control room (a similar button on the bridge would simply turn on a light below).
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From an observation deck, passengers could look down into the engine room and watch the reactor control room operators at work. The Savannah's dining room (top) could serve passengers or visitors to the ship. It featured atomic light fixtures (bottom left) and atom-themed dinnerware (bottom right). Last fall, its nuclear reactor was removed as part of its decomissioning. "Thor enables replenishment of energy and supplies on site, while also boasting the technology to facilitate rescue operations, as well as conducting research tasks," the line said in a press release issued at the time of the announcement.
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A backup auxiliary motor run off of diesel power kept the ship going while engineers restarted the reactor. Ugo Salerno of RINA shared, “The improvement of fuel efficiency and vessel design is already giving good results in reducing shipping footprint. But, in order to reach the targets fixed for this industry, we need alternative fuels with low carbon content from well to waste. As part of the agreement, the three will combine their expertise to conduct an in-depth study into potential nuclear applications for the shipping and cruise industry. This includes examining the viability of integrating Newcleo’s state-of-the-art lead-cooled small modular reactors (SMR) technology. A small amount of enriched uranium emits heat, which is used to drive a steam engine that can power a ship’s propulsion and onboard electricity.
Andrew McKeran, chief commercial officer at Lloyd’s Register, a U.K.-based maritime consulting firm, noted during the Seatrade panel that the industry’s perspectives on carbon emissions have been quick to evolve. Among the several important takeaways about nuclear-powered ships learned from the operation of the Savannah, the largest was safety concerns. The Savannah often required special permits to dock in foreign ports, and certification processes were lengthy. Even today, some countries, like New Zealand, have total bans on nuclear-powered ships in their territorial waters. The ship's reactor control room sits next to the turbines that the nuclear reactor powers (top).
The Savannah is the only nuclear-powered merchant ship the U.S. ever built, and the only nuclear vessel in the world designed with passengers in mind. As NPR's chief correspondent for all things atomic, I've wanted to see her for years. Over the course of 13 days, a luxurious Viking ocean ship transports guests from London to Amsterdam, then all the way up the coast of Norway and north of the Arctic Circle, before returning back south to the Norwegian city of Bergen. (Although some sailings operate in reverse.) The Norwegian fjords themselves are a sight to behold — and if they're paired with the northern lights, that's all the better! The sailings run from January to March when daylight is limited in the Arctic Circle, making for prime aurora opportunities.
NPR correspondent Geoff Brumfiel boards the NS Savannah, a nuclear passenger ship built in the late 1950s as part of a U.S. program to illustrate the positive uses of nuclear energy. "The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future," Eisenhower told the assembled diplomats. Specializing in polar voyages, Quark Expeditions knows a thing or two about the northern lights, which is why the company offers aurora sailings each fall.
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In the last year, cruise companies have released concepts that use anything from wind power to biofuels and hydrogen-powered fuel cells. “Where I see nuclear potentially fitting in [to the cruise industry] is a potential future retrofit. Cruise ships have relatively long lives, and they already undergo periodic refits to update passenger amenities. It could be possible to envision rebuilding the power source to be nuclear [during a regular refit],” Menzies said during the panel.
In December of 1953, the very future of the world seemed to be in question. The Soviet Union had just detonated its first thermonuclear weapon. A year before, the United States had tested its own ten-megaton device on a remote Pacific island. The blast was so powerful, it wiped the island from the face of the Earth. The office of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said it instructed officials to gather information about the launch and ensure the safety of aircraft and vessels.
Consequently, ship manufacturers are assessing their options for zero-emission fuels, and nuclear power is one of them. The interior of the Savannah remains a time capsule of the mid-century era in which it operated. The main lobby of the cruise ship welcomed paying passengers from 1962 to 1965. Muren said Ulstein's idea is that one service vessel with a small nuclear reactor could serve as a floating power station for up to four small, all-electric expedition ships sailing in a region such as Antarctica. The company unveiled an outline of its concept for both an all-electric cruise vessel and the nuclear power-generating service vessel that would keep the all-electric cruise vessel charged. It also showed off artist's renderings of what the two vessels would look like.
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