The Lloyd’s List Podcast: Has shipping’s nuclear option reached critical mass?
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There is a growing body of opinion across shipping that is routinely referring to nuclear, alongside carbon capture technology, as the only real options on the table that will allow shipping to fully decarbonise by 2050. Has the previously fringe option of nuclear-powered ships become sufficiently mainstream for the industry to consider leapfrogging ammonia and hydrogen as a more pragmatic solution?
NUCLEAR power in shipping used to be a fringe discussion. Not any more.
It is increasingly being namechecked along with carbon capture as the only chance the industry has to reach net zero by 2050.
Amid growing scepticism over the supply of green, scalable zero-carbon fuels for shipping, the nuclear lobby is gaining ground.
Only nuclear provides the energy density, efficiency and security needed to decarbonise each area of the maritime economy, they argue.
Nuclear-electric vessel provide and opportunity for lowered operational costs compared to fossil fuels in an economy governed by carbon taxation measures, while delivering full decarbonisation.
But is this resurgent enthusiasm for nuclear a genuine maturing of the technology and the political readiness to take seriously the need for nuclear power to create green fuels and potentially scaled nuclear-powered shipping?
Or is this just the latest get-out-of-jail-free card for an industry that routinely relies on the silver bullet sitting just out of reach, over the horizon?
This week on the Lloyd’s List podcast we are going to the atomic heart of the matter and exploring shipping’s nuclear option.
Featuring:
- Myrto Tripathi, chief executive of the NGO Voices of Nuclear
- Mikal Bøe, chairman and chief executive of Core Power
- Matthieu de Tugny, president, Marine & Offshore, Bureau Veritas
