China has unveiled details of a nuclear-powered cargo ship under development: that can carry 14,000 standard shipping containers. It will be powered by a thorium-based molten salt reactor (TMSR) with an output of 200 MWt or 50 MWe – matching the power of the S6W pressurised water reactor used to power the US Navy’s most advanced Seawolf-class nuclear attack submarines.
Details were first published in the Hong Kong English-language South China Morning Post, describing a ship capable of carrying up to 14,000 TEU containers (standard containers 20 feet long and 8 feet wide).
The choice of s thorium fuel cycle was made due to its greater safety compared with uranium-plutonium, as well as the presence of large reserves of thorium in China.
The TMSR has been operating without overload for 10 years. The working fluid of the second circuit of the reactor plant is supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2), which provides a total efficiency of about 45-50%. The project provides passive energy removal systems. For worst-case scenarios, liquid salt is drained into a trap tank and then hardened. The vessel is also equipped with a 10 MW backup diesel generator.
The project is being developed by the Jiangnan Shipbuilding Group, part of the Chinese State Shipping Corporation (CSSC). The project manager is senior engineer Hu Keyi. The SCMP article is based on an article authored by Hu Keyi in the Chinese Ship & Boat magazine.
This presented a historical overview of the application of nuclear technology in the navy, as well as a brief overview of various reactor technologies. The final part of the paper looks at three different concepts for the use of non-water reactors for marine vessels, as follows – a fast lead-bismuth reactor tanker; a thorium liquid salt reactor container ship; and a floating nuclear power plant with high-temperature gas-cooled reactor.
The concepts are cited as a possible next step in the introduction of nuclear technology for marine applications, with the proviso being made that water-cooled reactors are best developed for such applications at the moment. In his choices, Hu Keyi was guided by a concept proposed in 2003 by a number of US national laboratories and universities, which was theoretical in nature.
