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A vision full of power for Australia

By Stuart Ballantyne - posted Tuesday, 10 May 2022


As a Merchant Navy navigator I knew the range and durability of my ship was intrinsically limited to the fuel capacity

In the late1960's and as the new junior 3rd officer of the elderly cargo passenger cargo ship "Francis Drake", we berthed in Yokohama opposite to the world's first nuclear passenger cargo ship Savannah, a superb yacht styled ship. The Marylin Monroe of the shipping industry !

At 1600hrs, when Savannah's passengers started returning from their shore excursions, I made the move. Dressed in full uniform, and carrying a large envelope marked "ORDERS" (containing a handwritten chinese take-away list), I started my brisk march across the pier.

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Despite the official crowd including security staff at the bottom of the Savannah's gangway, I marched purposefully through them and straight up the gangway. Bluff used to work then, nowadays you need a badge, a gun, a peaked cap and an Alsatian dog.

The bright orange "art deco" style of the upholstery and space-age styling of the lounge and reception areas made our old 1948 built ship look like a floating relic out of a bleak Charles Dickens novel.

Of course it was only a few minutes later when they realised I was an imposter and apprehended me and politely escorted me off the vessel, despite my protests that I had mistaken their ship as mine.

The Savannah was a showcase of US President Dwight Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" initiative. Considering at that post 2nd World War time, the very mention of the word Atom made people instinctively hold their heads and duck, this initiative was a good one.

The Germans at the same time built the "Otto Hahn" and the Japanese built "Mutsu", both nuclear powered. The 164 metre Otto Hahn managed to clock up 250,000 sea miles (11 trips around the world) on a very impressive 22 kilograms of uranium, with no greenhouse gas emissions!.

No other power system comes close to nuclear.

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Success stories are generally short lived and the beancounters within the US Administration, decided that losing $2 million a year was just not on, and mothballed Savannah.

This was in 1973 when oil was $20 a tonne, they had no idea that just one year later, the Arab oil embargo would quadruple fuel oil to over $80 a tonne. Small change indeed by today's standards.

Savannah was capable of circling the earth 14 times at 20 knots without refuelling. Nowadays a similar 14,000kW of installed power would cost around US$49 million in just fuel alone.

The U.S., Japan and Germany have decommissioned their nuclear vessels and indeed the Otto Hahn was re-engined and operated successfully as a cargo vessel. The Russian nuclear cargo vessel "Sevmorput" was built some 20 years after Savannah and is still reported to be operational within Russia. The US and Russia still have a number of nuclear powered warships and submarines that have proven successful in unmatched operational range and safety.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, had tried to open the debate on nuclear energy as Australia was ideally situated to develop a nuclear industry. He failed.

It was not a smart move to close down the nuclear engineering faculty at the University of NSW. But with Government bans prevailing, compliments of the ever unhappy greens and Labor, what else could they do?

In 2019 the NSW Govt bi-partisan committee endorsed a repeal of the 1986 ban on uranium mining and nuclear power as the technology, particularly safety aspects, had improved significantly since then. Those interested should join the ANA (Australian Nuclear Association), a source of sensible discussion on nuclear power.

Small Modular Reactors (SMR's), the latest development in nuclear technology with lower cost and far lower risk of pollution are being put on barges and plugged into remote cities in Russia. As most of the Australian population are around the coastline, why not copy this success in Australia ?

Think of the Australian advantages:-

An abundance of uranium and thorium

Available technology

A stable Government

Dumping site possibilities

For Australia as a Nation, nuclear power makes very good sense, as we have already committed to nuclear submarines and now must restart our nuclear engineering faculties at universities and train up our own people.

Australia does have a unique opportunity here, but is the leadership prepared to grasp the nettle, and move from rhetoric to action ??

There are many nuclear ships around the world and the very construction of these ships, even if there is an accident or incident, makes them a much safer bet than older shore installations such as Chernobyl. Yet "Our ABC" reported Fukushima as having caused many deaths, when there was actually none from the nuclear plant but deaths and injuries came from the tsunami that caused the plant shutdown.

We don't need the ABC giving oxygen to the malcontents with their ritual belching of misinformation.

We do need many more people with vision to stand up for what is good for our country.

As a Nation approaching an election at the same time when we are watching Europe and the UK go through a world of pain with lack of affordable power, should we be committing to renewables or nuclear? As a ship designer, I can confirm the nuclear is the blatantly obvious answer, but there is an absence of dialogue on "Vision policies" by our potential leaders.

Be careful who you vote for !.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish": Proverbs

 

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About the Author

Stuart Ballantyne is just a sailor who runs Seat Transport Solutions who are naval architects, consultants, surveyors and project managers.

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