Back in the 1950s and early 1960s nuclear power seemed to offer an alternative to hydrocarbons. That was the era of nuclear powered car and plane designs.
The reality of complex and heavy reactors needing skilled engineers to babysit them plus no way of disposing safely of the spent fuel has ensured that they are used only where there is no alternative.
More efficient engines to power large ships using hydrocarbons seem the direction of travel. Wind turbines and solar power may augment but not replace them.
 
If we want an example of a modern fast Cargo Ship, the 37-knot, diesel-powered Maersk B class proved to be so useful that they spent several years after the Global Financial Crisis moored together as a raft in Lock Striven, only being used as a film set for a children's television series.

When you gotta blockade run through the anti-smuggler screen of Shimakazes and Le Fantasques, accept no substitutes.
 

TITLE: PROCEEDINGS OF THE MERCHANT MARINE COUNCIL
DATE: OCTOBER 1958
PAGE: 189
- ARTIST'S CONCEPTION "UNDERWATER CARGO VESSEL OF TOMMOROW" by
AEROJET-GENERAL CORPORATION


Popular Science - JULY 1959
"What the Enginners Are Dreaming Up"
Page: 80
AEROJET-GENERAL CORPORATION
SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE UNDERWATER CARGO VESSEL
Page:82
N/S SAVANNAH WITH NUCLEAR POWERED PISTON ENGINE
 
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Inside world’s-first nuclear megayacht ‘Thor’

ship_QIF6NwLJP.jpg
 
The thing is, the big Marine diesels currently burn the sludge that is left over after you refine all the more-valuable hydrocarbons out of petroleum. Which is great in terms of fuel costs (Bunker C is cheap), but terrible in terms of pollution emitted.


Back in the 1950s and early 1960s nuclear power seemed to offer an alternative to hydrocarbons. That was the era of nuclear powered car and plane designs.
The reality of complex and heavy reactors needing skilled engineers to babysit them plus no way of disposing safely of the spent fuel has ensured that they are used only where there is no alternative.
More efficient engines to power large ships using hydrocarbons seem the direction of travel. Wind turbines and solar power may augment but not replace them.
reprocessing and recycling the fuel is the answer to minimize the spent fuel problem. And once it's no longer useful for ship fuel, you can stick it into a shore side reactor to burn it down to a low mass of stuff that only has a 30-year halflife. Which means only 300 years of storage.
 

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