Concept Overview

A few fractions of a degree doesn't seem like much, but in 2012 James E. Hansen calculated that this growth was equal in energy to detonating 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, 365 days per year. Since then, the energy imbalance has only continued.  Using the same metric, one report has equated ocean temperature rise during the past 19 years to detonating 1 such atomic bomb per second for 75 years (Gleckler et al. cited in Borenstein (2016))

As in much of the world: coal, oil, and natural gas are by far the largest energy sources in the U.S.

Second, biofuel and biomass (which are renewable and a primary source of energy in parts of the world) are substantially worse than coal in the U.S. (because these fuels have their own associated pollution).

And third is that, despite all the attention on nuclear safety: hydro, wind, and solar are substantially more dangerous per Kilowatt hour produced. For wind and solar this has to do in part with how much total energy is produced by individual installations and how dangerous it can be to work at the heights of the best placements.

Some experts in the field are looking at offshore placement to solve or lower many of these persistent issues.

Russia has looked to make a fleet of floating nuclear power plants for years, and more recently China has moved to have an operating floating nuclear power plant by 2020. And even in the U.S. MIT professor Jacopo Buongiorno has proposed it for inherent safety benefits including avoidance of tsunami (by being out far enough, the wave force is substantially lower), and access to what he refers to as a near infinite heat sink. The image, provided by Dr Buongiorno, is a conceptualization of how the MIT floating power plant may appear.

The concept of offshore nuclear has been looked at before though, most notably with the Atlantic Generating Station (AGS). It was going to be a massive construction project (and all was going well for it) but when energy costs for oil skyrocketed in 1973, demand for energy in general stagnated. Ironically, it was the rising cost of it's competitor that ultimately shut down the project in 1978 because it relied so heavily on constantly growing energy demand, including demand from offshore oil platforms.

In an effort to increase consistency in safety and cost, there is a lot of research being done on 'small modular reactors.' A single "module" can be built and shipped from a well equipped, staffed, and trusted facility.

Each module is completely responsible for fuel, reaction, cooling flow, and spent fuel containment. Making them safer and more trustworthy especially for use in developing nations without nuclear capability.

But the best of both Offshore placement and Small Modular Reactors can be reached by doing what the navy has been doing for years. With all of the benefits to safety and cost of standardized production, truly modular design, and abundant cooling. It's rarely mentioned but the navy has operated nuclear reactors at sea for decades without incidents like those which have shaken confidence in commercial nuclear. 

Apart from capacity, naval reactors aren't inherently different or safer than their commercial counterparts. Their safety is achieved through their practices, standards, and experience. And, they do have one advantage in addressing the biggest risk of land-based nuclear reactors, overheating through loss of coolant, because all naval nuclear reactors have the inherent advantage of the infinite heat sink provided by being under water.

A problem faced by the U.S. and other nations that have turned away from nuclear is that no local industry has the capacity and experience needed to build safe nuclear power plants. Making nuclear an unrealistic option even if a fully safe and waste free reactor were designed and publicly accepted.