Yeah, like there's a reason the only portable nuclear reactors that exist are in fucking aircraft carriers and giant submarines (which are still dumb and bad). You don't want these things to have any possibility of collision, let alone the possibility of being hijacked.
just wait until the USA collapses in 2040 and Bezos appropriates the USS Gerald Ford
Real question though: Why can't we have nuclear ships? There's no reason why we can't have the seas not be powered by dead dinosaurs.
I guess its not impractical in some sort of post revolution world but there's still the chance that one of these gets destroyed in an armed conflict and fucks up the ocean ecology in its vicinity.
We do, actually. Some aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered.
Russian icebreakers are too, and they're much smaller than aircraft carriers.
The USSR also used small-scale nuclear reactors in their antarctic bases.
The real tragedy is the way we never used them for space propulsion - they're orders of magnitude better than chemical propulsion. Also, as usual with space stuff, the USSR's nuclear space engine, the RD-0410, was superior to the American NERVA.
What are the implications of that? A whole bunch of nuclear subs sank. Did they fuck up the environment more than an oil tanker sinking would?
Right now, cause it's fucking expensive. Both to build it and throughout its life. Training people to operate it safely is expensive, doing maintenance according to far stricter regulations is expensive, dealing with it 25 years down the line is expensive. Digging up a bunch more uranium wouldn't be very awesome for the people involved in that either.
Three people died testing a prototype, possibly a murder/suicide: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1 This was the last time someone died in a reactor accident in the US
Edit: they also installed one reactor at the Army's secret ICBM ice lair in Greenland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
This was the last time someone died in a reactor accident in the US... so far!
The Soviets actually did it: https://habr.com/en/company/mailru/blog/370363/
Kit-based reactors aren't entirely undeveloped technology.
Nuclear train: :sicko-yes:
Diesel train pulling a container with a nuclear reactor: :sicko-no:
What if we were to simply use a large stationary nuclear reactor to generate power more efficiently and the transport it to locomotives somehow? Perhaps wires hanging overhead? Nevermind, it could never work.
Can’t wait for the wtyp episode on one of these vehicles inevitably crashing and unleashing radiation over an entire city
The plane gets me the most, like what if that thing gets shot down and just spreads that shit over a hundred mile swath of land.
Shot down? It'll just crash because the load is heavy and someone couldn't be fun led to load balance it properly like has happened multiple times before... (Those times it was live warheads over NC though)
how do people watch that podcast? It's 1 guy who knows about shit saying what happened while constantly being interrupted by 2 people making jokes and snide remarks.
It's like socialising with real people only that the guy telling you what happened actually knows something about it.
I didn't read properly and thought it was about tactical nuclear weapons, another Obama era policy.
Still a terrible idea though.
Funfact, apparently the US navy once looked in to nuclear powered airships. Idk how close they actually were to them, but they atleast made a report about them
Similarly, there was a concept nuclear bomber that could fly virtually indefinitely, the idea was to station them over the arctic circle for month-long stays to threaten the Soviets.
