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This Nuclear-Powered Superyacht Is Longer Than the Titanic and Costs $700 Million

A nuclear-powered gigayacht longer than the Titanic, with 22 state-of-the art laboratories and a 13-story “science sphere,” might sound like the floating headquarters of a criminal mastermind. But Earth 300 is actually a revolutionary exploration vessel designed to investigate climate change and other challenges that face our planet. Designed by naval architect Iván Salas Jefferson, founder of Iddes Yachts, the 300-meter vessel has a radically aerodynamic look. It’s been envisioned as an “extreme technology platform,” incorporating robotics, AI, and quantum computing to attract the best and brightest minds from a wealth of fields. A Davos on water, if you will.

Such a bold vision doesn’t come cheap—right now the price tag for the ship, being constructed by Polish naval architecture firm NED, hovers between $500 and $700 million. Designed to resemble Earth, the orb’s “science city” will house top climate scientists, who will use the ship’s state-of-the-art tech to develop innovative solutions.

The vessel is designed to house top climate scientists.

“We wanted to create a design that would inspire,” Salas Jefferson said in a statement. “When one looks at the sphere, we want them to be inspired to protect Earth. When one walks into the sphere, now housing the science city, and feels the action of all the ongoing scientific works, we want them to be inspired to become an alchemist of global solutions.”

Measuring 150 feet at its widest—almost the length of a football field—the sleek ship includes an extraordinary observation deck on the bow, a foredeck helipad to transport passengers to and from the vessel, and a selection of advanced underwater expedition vehicles for deep-sea exploration.

“The ship will introduce features found on cruise, expedition, research, and luxury yachts, but she will be none of them,” said Aaron Olivera, Earth 300 ’s chief executive. “We wanted to build the Olympic torch of global science, to expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe, both above and below the ocean’s surface.”

The orb is the most striking design element of the yacht.

The project’s list of backers is impressive and includes IBM, Triton Submarines, EYOS Expeditions, and RINA, an international leader in maritime safety. TerraPower, the nuclear innovation company founded by Bill Gates, devised the technology for the onboard molten-salt reactor, which will provide zero-emissions energy.

Expected to launch in 2025, Earth 300 will have room for a complement of 160 scientists from a variety of disciplines, as well as 165 crew members and dozens of experts-in-residences and student researchers.

There will also be spots for 40 VIP guests, who will pay $3 million each for the privilege. That’s more than 10 times the cost of a seat on Virgin Galactic. With so many looking spaceward, why develop a cutting-edge seafaring vessel?

“The oceans are dying,” Salas Jefferson told Architectural Digest . “Having been born in Palma de Mallorca, I’ve seen it firsthand in the Mediterranean. Now is the time to reboot, reconnect, and redirect our planet’s destiny. Our oceans keep us—and our planet—alive, and Earth 300 ’s mission is to protect our oceans and ensure their health for generations to come.” Space may be the future, Salas Jefferson says, but “today, Earth is our only home.”

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This Nuclear-Powered Superyacht Is Longer Than the Titanic and Costs $700 Million

A nuclear-powered gigayacht longer than the Titanic, with 22 state-of-the art laboratories and a 13-story “science sphere,” might sound like the floating headquarters of a criminal mastermind. But Earth 300 is actually a revolutionary exploration vessel designed to investigate climate change and other challenges that face our planet. Designed by naval architect Iván Salas Jefferson, founder of Iddes Yachts, the 300-meter vessel has a radically aerodynamic look. It’s been envisioned as an “extreme technology platform,” incorporating robotics, AI, and quantum computing to attract the best and brightest minds from a wealth of fields. A Davos on water, if you will.

Such a bold vision doesn’t come cheap—right now the price tag for the ship, being constructed by Polish naval architecture firm NED, hovers between $500 and $700 million. Designed to resemble Earth, the orb’s “science city” will house top climate scientists, who will use the ship’s state-of-the-art tech to develop innovative solutions.

“We wanted to create a design that would inspire,” Salas Jefferson said in a statement. “When one looks at the sphere, we want them to be inspired to protect Earth. When one walks into the sphere, now housing the science city, and feels the action of all the ongoing scientific works, we want them to be inspired to become an alchemist of global solutions.”

Measuring 150 feet at its widest—almost the length of a football field—the sleek ship includes an extraordinary observation deck on the bow, a foredeck helipad to transport passengers to and from the vessel, and a selection of advanced underwater expedition vehicles for deep-sea exploration.

“The ship will introduce features found on cruise, expedition, research, and luxury yachts, but she will be none of them,” said Aaron Olivera, Earth 300 ’s chief executive. “We wanted to build the Olympic torch of global science, to expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe, both above and below the ocean’s surface.”

The project’s list of backers is impressive and includes IBM, Triton Submarines, EYOS Expeditions, and RINA, an international leader in maritime safety. TerraPower, the nuclear innovation company founded by Bill Gates, devised the technology for the onboard molten-salt reactor, which will provide zero-emissions energy.

Expected to launch in 2025, Earth 300 will have room for a complement of 160 scientists from a variety of disciplines, as well as 165 crew members and dozens of experts-in-residences and student researchers.

There will also be spots for 40 VIP guests, who will pay $3 million each for the privilege. That’s more than 10 times the cost of a seat on Virgin Galactic. With so many looking spaceward, why develop a cutting-edge seafaring vessel?

“The oceans are dying,” Salas Jefferson told Architectural Digest . “Having been born in Palma de Mallorca, I’ve seen it firsthand in the Mediterranean. Now is the time to reboot, reconnect, and redirect our planet’s destiny. Our oceans keep us—and our planet—alive, and Earth 300 ’s mission is to protect our oceans and ensure their health for generations to come.” Space may be the future, Salas Jefferson says, but “today, Earth is our only home.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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This Nuclear-Powered Superyacht Is Longer Than the Titanic and Costs $700 Million

Designed to attract the best and brightest minds in exploring and combating climate change, the vessel plans to be a “science city” on the water

By dan avery, june 15, 2021.

A nuclear-powered gigayacht longer than the Titanic, with 22 state-of-the art laboratories and a 13-story “science sphere,” might sound like the floating headquarters of a criminal mastermind. But Earth 300 is actually a revolutionary exploration vessel designed to investigate climate change and other challenges that face our planet. Designed by naval architect Iván Salas Jefferson , founder of Iddes Yachts, the 300-meter vessel has a radically aerodynamic look. It’s been envisioned as an “extreme technology platform,” incorporating robotics, AI, and quantum computing to attract the best and brightest minds from a wealth of fields. A Davos on water, if you will.

Such a bold vision doesn’t come cheap—right now the price tag for the ship, being constructed by Polish naval architecture firm NED, hovers between $500 and $700 million. Designed to resemble Earth, the orb’s “science city” will house top climate scientists, who will use the ship’s state-of-the-art tech to develop innovative solutions.

“We wanted to create a design that would inspire,” Salas Jefferson said in a statement. “When one looks at the sphere, we want them to be inspired to protect Earth. When one walks into the sphere, now housing the science city, and feels the action of all the ongoing scientific works, we want them to be inspired to become an alchemist of global solutions.”

Measuring 150 feet at its widest—almost the length of a football field—the sleek ship includes an extraordinary observation deck on the bow, a foredeck helipad to transport passengers to and from the vessel, and a selection of advanced underwater expedition vehicles for deep-sea exploration.

“The ship will introduce features found on cruise, expedition, research, and luxury yachts , but she will be none of them,” said Aaron Olivera , Earth 300 ’s chief executive. “We wanted to build the Olympic torch of global science, to expand our knowledge and understanding of the universe, both above and below the ocean’s surface.”

The project’s list of backers is impressive and includes IBM, Triton Submarines, EYOS Expeditions, and RINA, an international leader in maritime safety. TerraPower, the nuclear innovation company founded by Bill Gates, devised the technology for the onboard molten-salt reactor, which will provide zero-emissions energy.

Expected to launch in 2025, Earth 300 will have room for a complement of 160 scientists from a variety of disciplines, as well as 165 crew members and dozens of experts-in-residences and student researchers.

There will also be spots for 40 VIP guests, who will pay $3 million each for the privilege. That’s more than 10 times the cost of a seat on Virgin Galactic. With so many looking spaceward, why develop a cutting-edge seafaring vessel?

“The oceans are dying,” Salas Jefferson told Architectural Digest . “Having been born in Palma de Mallorca, I’ve seen it firsthand in the Mediterranean. Now is the time to reboot, reconnect, and redirect our planet’s destiny. Our oceans keep us—and our planet—alive, and Earth 300 ’s mission is to protect our oceans and ensure their health for generations to come.” Space may be the future, Salas Jefferson says, but “today, Earth is our only home.”

View on Architectural Digest

Maritime industry explores nuclear power for ships as technology opens up

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Earth to CNN: No, a nuclear-powered superyacht won’t save the world

By Dawn Stover | September 28, 2021

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Who knew that a sexy nuclear superyacht could save us from climate catastrophe? That was the awesome news from CNN’s travel desk yesterday.

CNN wasn’t alone. Forbes , BBC Science Focus Magazine , and a host of other media outlets have previously hailed the world-rescuing potential of what CNN described as “an emissions-free megaship that will pit together climate scientists and the wealthy in a daring quest to save the planet.”

“Pit together” sounds like an apt description of a would-be merger between luxury tourism and climate action. You can put those two things together in a sentence, but in the real world they mix about as easily as oil and water.

And there’s another big problem with the plan for this overhyped 300-meter-long vessel and its global research: Earth 300 , as the $700 million superyacht is called, will be powered by a molten salt nuclear reactor that doesn’t exist yet and won’t be certified for at least five years. The company’s website illustrates the reactor with a scale model of an experiment done in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The website also says the scientists onboard Earth 300 will have the world’s first ocean-going quantum computer. But that, too, has yet to be built.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis needs immediate attention. “We really are out of time,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned this month.

While they wait for a modular nuclear reactor that might never come, the developers of Earth 300 say they will use green synthetic fuels. These are liquid fuels derived from coal or natural gas in a process that captures carbon. However, they are much more expensive than fossil fuels. Aaron Olivera, the entrepreneur behind Earth 300 , told CNN he plans to “eventually” retrofit the yacht with a reactor being developed by the UK company Core Power in collaboration with TerraPower, a US nuclear engineering firm chaired by Bill Gates.

Globally, there are at least 171 motorized megayachts that are 75 meters (246 feet) or more in length. Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, is rumored to be buying a superyacht so big that it will have a dock for its own “support yacht.” Eclipse , an even bigger superyacht owned by Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich, has its own missile defense system. The largest yacht currently operating, Azzam , is 180 meters (590 feet) long and consumes 13 metric tons of fuel per hour at its top speed of 33 knots. That’s about 0.01 miles (or a little over 50 feet) per gallon.

Earth 300 would be much bigger.

And the customers Olivera would like to attract—the wealthiest people in the world—also tend to have the world’s largest carbon footprints, thanks in no small part to their habit of traveling aboard superyachts and private airplanes. According to calculations by two researchers at Indiana University , a superyacht with a permanent crew and helicopter pad is “by far the worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint.”

Earth 300 ’s luxury suites will each rent for $300,000 a day, which presumably will cover the personnel and expenses needed to operate the ship and its 22 scientific laboratories. But construction won’t begin until 2025 at the earliest, and any groundbreaking scientific discoveries or billionaire epiphanies that could help stabilize the climate are even further into the future.

Construction is already delayed on another 600-foot-long yacht that will combine climate research with charters for paying customers. Financed by Kjell Inge Røkke, a Norwegian billionaire who made his fortune in fishing and oil drilling, REV Ocean will investigate climate change and ocean acidification, plastic pollution, and overfishing, but the nonprofit project is at least three years behind schedule.

Who will be aboard these superyachts? CNN asked Olivera which famous people he’d like to host on his future ship, and he named Elon Musk, Michelle Obama, Greta Thunberg, Naomi Klein and Yvon Chouinard. Like the superyacht itself, some of those potential guests seem more aspirational than realistic.

Wealthiest 1% produce double the combined CO2 emissions of poorest 50%. "We have got to cut over-consumption and the best place to start is over-consumption among the polluting elites who contribute by far more than their share of carbon emissions." https://t.co/0bEwESnE9O — Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 13, 2021

Greta Thunberg doesn’t take airplanes or motor yachts. Elon Musk doesn’t take vacations. And Bill Gates may be hurt that he’s not on the A-list.

Together, we make the world safer.

The Bulletin elevates expert voices above the noise. But as an independent nonprofit organization, our operations depend on the support of readers like you. Help us continue to deliver quality journalism that holds leaders accountable. Your support of our work at any level is important . In return, we promise our coverage will be understandable, influential, vigilant, solution-oriented, and fair-minded. Together we can make a difference.

Keywords: CNN , Earth 300 , superyachts Topics: Climate Change , Columnists , Nuclear Energy , Nuclear Risk , Opinion

An absurd idea, the money much better spent on more prosaic but proven solutions like promoting regen Agriculture. If they start to ask for shares, we know it is something else … PS Don’t knock LFTRs.

think “Snowpiercer”!

(But rather than a train running on and on thru a frozen wasteland, we get yachts sailing on and on upon oceans of warmed-up water.)

I think the true purpose of such a super yacht is as a literal show boat for promoting the so-called ‘green’ liquid biofuel(s). For such a project to be taken seriously, its entire construction should not consume any drop, gram or Pascal of any carbon based fuel. The recycling, mining, smelting, casting, any materials processing, transportation of raw materials and components, then systems integration, final assembly and super yacht launching should be done with completely renewable energy sources. Initially the propulsion system should be powered with Perovskite Solar Cell based Photo-Voltaic panels and Icelandic design wind power generators with high …  Read more »

As a follow up to my previous comment (which I couldn’t add because my editing time window expired) was: One prominent type of salt under investigation (also potentially for use in LFTR) is FLiBe, which was the subject of a March 1999 research paper by Lockeed Martin sponsored researchers L. C. Cadwallader and G. R. Longhurst as a potential plasma facing coolant for Thermonuclear Fusion Reactors. This paper explores to a good level of detail, the Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety issues to be addressed when working with FLiBe salt. This is one area of investigation that may benefit …  Read more »

We have carbon free ships. They are powered by sail.

Dawn Stover

Dawn Stover is a contributing editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She began her career at Harper's magazine and worked... Read More

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This Nuclear Megayacht Was Designed to Save the World; Noah’s Ark Style

The super-wealthy tend to attempt masking their absurd spending as ways to help fuel the economy, further progress, or in this case, save the world. After watching Jeff Bezos spend billions to fly next to space, or Tesla push its unproven driverless tech after a year wrought with hardship, violence, and death, many had their illusions of billionaires shattered. But is this new nuclear megayacht going to be more of the same or a modern-day Noah’s Ark? It’s hard to say “ark” and “yacht” in the same sentence.

Can a nuclear megayacht save the world? 

According to CNN , Indiana University anthropologists calculated that a superyacht with a permanent crew, a helicopter pad, submarines, and pools emit over 7,000 tons of CO2 a year. Since most billionaires MADE money throughout the pandemic, boat sales have skyrocketed . Much like the camper van boom , the super-rich have taken to the open seas to socially distance themselves. There are now 300 superyachts roaming our seas. 

Since we know these customers won’t be denied their comforts for a little global climate change, a new type of ship promises to give them their luxury while still keeping dry ground safe for the rest of us. 

Aaron Olivera, the Gibraltar-born, Singapore-based entrepreneur behind the idea, looked at this data and asked, “Why not take the wealthiest people in the world, pull them together with the smartest and brightest scientists, and allow them to experience firsthand what’s taking place?” “Wealthy people can go online and buy anything they want, but they cannot buy a new mental model with which to see the world.”

Meet the Earth 300

The proposed megayacht gets its name from its immense length, 300 meters. For Americans, that is essentially a boat the size of a football field. The design is wonderfully futuristic. The massive 13-story orb that might catch your eye first is home to two dozen mobile labs that will house scientists to gather data aimed at helping to figure out the climate crisis. 

This massive nuclear-powered megayacht will also be hope to a quantum computer, a new type of computer that employs the properties of quantum mechanics to achieve incredible speed and power. 

To be clear, much of the Earth 300 isn’t really possible just yet. Like most plots to save the world, the proper technology has yet to reach us. However, IBM and Google are researching the subject as you read this. 

The proposed crew for the Earth 300 is massive. Most of the ship’s capacity of 425 people will be taken up by two main groups: 165 crew and 160 scientists. The crew will also be joined by a group of 20 students and 20 resident experts. Olivia calls this group of residents a “multidisciplinary melting pot” of economists, explorers, engineers, artists, activists, and even politicians. Along with all the professionals and actual people of interest and value, the ship will also sell 20 tickets to wealthy tourists who want to join the mission to save the world to lounge around and take selfies. These tickets will cost the wealthy patrons $1 million each. 

Exclusivity be damned

“This ship will be a floating computer which will allow people from all around the world to participate in the journey. That means that these wealthy individuals who are coming on board will have to share the experience with the world, not just among themselves,” says Olivera.

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Peter Corn joined MotorBiscuit as an Autos Writer in 2020 and brings his quippiest Southern drawl to our table. Having, in his words, “helped” rebuild his dad’s 1959 MGA as a small child, Peter grew up loving vintage cars and trucks , adding motorcycles and all things 4×4 as he went.

Peter earned a Bachelor of Archeology and Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and has since melded his love of driving with storytelling. His voice, full of pleasantries and witticisms, can be enjoyed in The Gentleman Racer, The Vintagent, Gear Patrol, Iron & Air Magazine, and Classic Car Club Magazine.

Peter is a co-founder of both The Colloquial Magazine and The Fire Escape, the official podcast of The Colloquial. In an effort to increase his abilities in “ramping anything with wheels,” Peter has taken track training from Classic Car Club Manhattan and attended Rally School at Monticello Motor Club, where he was coached by eight-time Performance Rally motorsport champion Chris Duplessis.

On a lucky day, we get to hear Peter tell the story of his first car, a jewel of a 1958 Ford Fairlane, into which he dumped more time and money than made sense, but he has no regrets.

Step inside the world's only nuclear-powered passenger ship — built in 1959

Deep inside the Port of Baltimore, past stacks of shipping containers and a plant that makes wallboard, sits the world's first, and only, nuclear-powered cruise ship – the NS Savannah.

The Savannah is the only nuclear-powered merchant ship the U.S. ever built, and the only nuclear vessel in the world designed with passengers in mind. As NPR's chief correspondent for all things atomic, I've wanted to see her for years.

So when the opportunity came up to take a tour recently, I climbed aboard.

Savannah's origin story began in the darkest days of the Cold War. In December of 1953, the very future of the world seemed to be in question. The Soviet Union had just detonated its first thermonuclear weapon. A year before, the United States had tested its own ten-megaton device on a remote Pacific island. The blast was so powerful, it wiped the island from the face of the Earth.

In a speech before the United Nations, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower acknowledged the peril facing the world, but he refused to accept that the atom's only purpose was to vaporize mankind.

"The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future," Eisenhower told the assembled diplomats. "The capability, already proved, is here today."

By the end of the decade, the U.S. Government had built the Savannah as part of a program known as "Atoms for Peace," which sought to demonstrate the good that nuclear energy could do.

The ship was launched in 1959, and its 74-megawatt nuclear reactor was powered up in 1961.

"Anybody could buy a ticket," says Erhard Koehler, the Senior Technical Advisor for the Savannah at the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, which owns the ship.

The ship was more of a proof-of-concept than an actual cruise ship. It could carry just 60 passengers, and it also had cargo holds for transporting goods.

Still, Koehler says, the ship was popular. "It was fully booked throughout its history." That history was brief – Savannah only carried passengers from 1962 to 1965.

Koehler says the decision to stop carrying passengers wasn't about safety. It was economic.

"If you stopped carrying passengers, you could reduce the number of stewards and reduce the cost of the program," he says.

The ship did see plenty of other visitors. Over its history, Savannah traveled to some 45 foreign ports in 26 countries. It's estimated that well over a million people boarded the ship to see its nuclear reactor at work. To facilitate the visitors, the Savannah sported an unusually large galley. "When it was in port, they would serve 500-700 people in a meal," Koehler says.

While the Savannah's nuclear reactor was revolutionary, the rest of the ship was actually unremarkable for the time it was built. "It wasn't very state-of-the-art," he says. "It's really a time capsule of what was the norm in the U.S. Merchant Marine in the 1950s and 60s."

Koehler takes me down to the reactor control room. It's located below, in the forward section of the ship.

It controlled a pressurized water reactor that used low-enriched uranium to produce heat. That heat was turned into steam that could run the ship's turbines, spinning the propeller and also producing electricity. The Savannah could cruise at 20 knots, which is similar to the speed of most cruise ships today.

We come down past the enormous turbines that once turned Savannah's propeller. The reactor control system is well lit. It's a small, one-of-a-kind system that allowed the ship's engineers to manage the reactor's power output as it plied the seas. Notably, the control room lacks any chairs: "By and large engineers in the 60s stood their watch; they didn't sit," Koehler says.

The operators could also command an emergency shut-down, or scram, of the reactor core. Scrams were rare aboard the Savannah, but one did take place in 1964, when the ship passed through a hurricane. A backup auxiliary motor run off of diesel power kept the ship going while engineers restarted the reactor.

Back in the ship's main lobby, Koehler shows me a small wooden cube. It represents the volume of uranium fuel needed to let the Savannah travel 454,000 nautical miles– enough to circumnavigate the world well over a dozen times. Traveling the same distance with conventional fuel would have required approximately 28 million gallons of it.

But despite its dazzling efficiency, Savannah was never economically viable. It required special fuel-handling facilities to load and unload its nuclear core. And decommissioning the ship has taken decades and cost far more than it could have ever made moving cargo or people.

In the early 1970s, the Savannah's reactor was shut down and de-fueled. By that time, the ship had done what it was supposed to do – demonstrate a peaceful use of nuclear energy. "The program was ended, rather than continue to spend money for no real net effect," he says.

The NS Savannah has never sailed again. In the 80s and 90s it was berthed at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in South Carolina, before being put into storage. Decommissioning of the ship's nuclear components began in 2017.

In November of last year, its reactor was removed and taken to Utah for disposal. Koehler says full decommissioning of the ship's nuclear components will take another two years or so. At that point the Maritime Administration can dispose of the Savannah, Koehler says, but he hopes it will be protected.

"Our objective is not to scrap the ship," he says. "Our objective is to see the ship preserved somehow."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Step inside the world's only nuclear-powered passenger ship — built in 1959.

The Nuclear Ship Savannah offers a snapshot of a nuclear future that never quite came to pass.

Deep inside the Port of Baltimore, past stacks of shipping containers and a plant that makes wallboard, sits the world's first, and only, nuclear-powered cruise ship – the NS Savannah.

The Savannah is the only nuclear-powered merchant ship the U.S. ever built, and the only nuclear vessel in the world designed with passengers in mind. As NPR's chief correspondent for all things atomic, I've wanted to see her for years.

So when the opportunity came up to take a tour recently, I climbed aboard.

Savannah's origin story began in the darkest days of the Cold War. In December of 1953, the very future of the world seemed to be in question. The Soviet Union had just detonated its first thermonuclear weapon. A year before, the United States had tested its own ten-megaton device on a remote Pacific island. The blast was so powerful, it wiped the island from the face of the Earth.

In a speech before the United Nations, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower acknowledged the peril facing the world, but he refused to accept that the atom's only purpose was to vaporize mankind.

"The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future," Eisenhower told the assembled diplomats. "The capability, already proved, is here today."

By the end of the decade, the U.S. Government had built the Savannah as part of a program known as "Atoms for Peace," which sought to demonstrate the good that nuclear energy could do.

The ship was launched in 1959, and its 74-megawatt nuclear reactor was powered up in 1961.

"Anybody could buy a ticket," says Erhard Koehler, the Senior Technical Advisor for the Savannah at the U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration, which owns the ship.

The ship was more of a proof-of-concept than an actual cruise ship. It could carry just 60 passengers, and it also had cargo holds for transporting goods.

Still, Koehler says, the ship was popular. "It was fully booked throughout its history." That history was brief – Savannah only carried passengers from 1962 to 1965.

Koehler says the decision to stop carrying passengers wasn't about safety. It was economic.

"If you stopped carrying passengers, you could reduce the number of stewards and reduce the cost of the program," he says.

The ship did see plenty of other visitors. Over its history, Savannah traveled to some 45 foreign ports in 26 countries. It's estimated that well over a million people boarded the ship to see its nuclear reactor at work. To facilitate the visitors, the Savannah sported an unusually large galley. "When it was in port, they would serve 500-700 people in a meal," Koehler says.

While the Savannah's nuclear reactor was revolutionary, the rest of the ship was actually unremarkable for the time it was built. "It wasn't very state-of-the-art," he says. "It's really a time capsule of what was the norm in the U.S. Merchant Marine in the 1950s and 60s."

Koehler takes me down to the reactor control room. It's located below, in the forward section of the ship.

It controlled a pressurized water reactor that used low-enriched uranium to produce heat. That heat was turned into steam that could run the ship's turbines, spinning the propeller and also producing electricity. The Savannah could cruise at 20 knots, which is similar to the speed of most cruise ships today.

We come down past the enormous turbines that once turned Savannah's propeller. The reactor control system is well lit. It's a small, one-of-a-kind system that allowed the ship's engineers to manage the reactor's power output as it plied the seas. Notably, the control room lacks any chairs: "By and large engineers in the 60s stood their watch; they didn't sit," Koehler says.

The operators could also command an emergency shut-down, or scram, of the reactor core. Scrams were rare aboard the Savannah, but one did take place in 1964, when the ship passed through a hurricane. A backup auxiliary motor run off of diesel power kept the ship going while engineers restarted the reactor.

Back in the ship's main lobby, Koehler shows me a small wooden cube. It represents the volume of uranium fuel needed to let the Savannah travel 454,000 nautical miles– enough to circumnavigate the world well over a dozen times. Traveling the same distance with conventional fuel would have required approximately 28 million gallons of it.

But despite its dazzling efficiency, Savannah was never economically viable. It required special fuel-handling facilities to load and unload its nuclear core. And decommissioning the ship has taken decades and cost far more than it could have ever made moving cargo or people.

In the early 1970s, the Savannah's reactor was shut down and de-fueled. By that time, the ship had done what it was supposed to do – demonstrate a peaceful use of nuclear energy. "The program was ended, rather than continue to spend money for no real net effect," he says.

The NS Savannah has never sailed again. In the 80s and 90s it was berthed at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in South Carolina, before being put into storage. Decommissioning of the ship's nuclear components began in 2017.

In November of last year, its reactor was removed and taken to Utah for disposal. Koehler says full decommissioning of the ship's nuclear components will take another two years or so. At that point the Maritime Administration can dispose of the Savannah, Koehler says, but he hopes it will be protected.

"Our objective is not to scrap the ship," he says. "Our objective is to see the ship preserved somehow."

Transcript:

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By SuperyachtNews 17 Aug 2022

The Nuclear Equation

Developments across the marine industry suggest the idea of a nuclear-powered superyacht may not be as science fiction as it once sounded….

In the quest for zero emissions, different corners of the marine sector are closing in on nuclear power as a possible solution. The question of its utility for superyachts is gathering cautious momentum. However, concepts like Earth 300, released in 2021, seem too far-fetched to work, right? I thought so when I first saw it, but should we doubt this level of ambition from the superyacht industry? Or underestimate the potential of nuclear power on private vessels?

Recent nuclear-powered concepts from the cruise and commercial sectors seem more grounded in the reality of effectively reaching emissions standards. Associations with classification societies and attainable-sounding technological barriers imply that this may be a plausible option for the next generation fleet. One technology, in particular, is gaining momentum across the marine industry: The Molten Salt Reactor (MSR)

The IMO is targeting a reduction in carbon emissions from international shipping of 40 per cent by 2030, in comparison to 2008 levels, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This will require drastic solutions. In 2010, Lloyd’s Register began formulating new rules for nuclear-powered ships, saying it had received some approaches for developing nuclear vessels from various interested parties. Likewise, RINA is associated with the Earth 300 concept. 

The nuclear equation, when taken simplistically, seems clear. However, zero carbon emissions and decades-long operational timelines from a few kilograms of fuel, too many,  sound too good to be true. Nuclear detractors are quick to highlight the shortcomings;  the infamous incidents at Chornobyl in 1986, Three Mile Island in 1979 and Fukushima in 2011 have ensured that the mention of nuclear power has calamitous connotations. 

Nuclear-powered vessels have a military association. The USA, Russia, UK, India, France and China all have extensive nuclear-powered fleets. The energy efficiency of nuclear-powered ships bears reiterating. Using the US Navy as an example and comparing two aircraft carriers of the same size lays this out starkly.

The 321 m USS John F. Kennedy, and the 332m USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were launched seven years apart. The former ran on heavy fuel oil and at full operational speeds while running the flight deck it had a fuel consumption rate of roughly 4.5 tonnes per ship length travelled. While the latter, on its nuclear propulsion and with a similar operational profile, consumed an amount of fissile fuel the size of grapefruit in 20 years.

The fear of meltdown and the significant issue of nuclear waste disposal looms large over these traditional reactors. However, it is also worth reiterating that, according to a feature that first appeared in Forbes in 2020, The Nuclear Navy worldwide has logged over 5,400 reactor years of accident-free operations and travelled over 130 million miles on nuclear energy, enough to circle the earth 3,500 times. The annual radiation levels Navy crews were exposed to was also calculated at one thousand times less than the acceptable limits for a hospital radiology department. 

There may be another option, first developed nearly 60 years ago, that is seeing renewed attention from the marine industry. UK-Based Core Power is working with the Bill Gate affiliated Terrapower to develop a molten salt reactor (MSR) suitable for shipboard power production. MSRs present an intriguing possibility, and a quick physics lesson may be needed. 

If you didn't know that a nuclear reactor heats water, creating steam and turning a turbine don't worry, I didn't until embarrassingly recently either. I would wager that many people's knowledge received a significant boost after the enthralling HBO series Chernobyl aired in 2020 also. Controlling this nuclear reaction safely, and making use of more accessible fuels are the key issues that MSRs theoretically address.

The use of pressurised helium or water to cool traditional fission nuclear reactors is one of the most dangerous aspects of their operations, and a significant contributor to the risk of an explosive meltdown. MSRs overcome this by using a reactive core of nuclear material and molten salt. Salt liquefies at around 400C, and the rupturing of the core would see a drop in temperature and the near-instant solidification of the core preventing a meltdown. 

These reactors can also repurpose semi-spent fuels from other sources. There is a significant buzz about using thorium as a nuclear fuel to further boost the efficiency of MSRs. This naturally occurring element is three times more abundant than uranium in the earth's crust. Thorium itself will not split and release energy. When it is exposed to neutrons, it will undergo a series of nuclear reactions until it eventually emerges as an isotope of uranium called U-233, which will readily split and release energy the next time it absorbs a neutron. Thorium is therefore called fertile, whereas U-233 is called fissile.

Using dissolved thorium in MSRs seems like a promising prospect for the marine industry. I even received a press release recently that implied it may be the ‘silver bullet solution’ in the sector's quest for zero carbon. The expedition cruise concept ‘Thor”, and its twin “Sif” from Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein, hope to combine these technologies. 

"Sif produces no emissions, so she can cruise in full-electric mode, and Thor would be its charging station. They are concepts right now and they might not be built in this way, but they start important discussions. We've been thinking about thorium as an energy source since 2008, but there is a stigma associated with nuclear power," says Ulstein chief designer Øyvind Gjerde Kamsvåg. 

"Although there are no thorium reactors up and running today it is a proven technology, with the earliest examples operating back in the 1950s and 1960s. However, that also means, unlike uranium, there’s currently no supply chain. But as thorium is around three times more abundant in the Earth’s crust than uranium – and there’s a lot here in Norway – it’s simply a matter of starting up the mining process. Every new energy source has to start somewhere. The barriers to utilising thorium are certainly not insurmountable,” Says Robert McDonald, Principal Engineer, Institute for Energy Technology (IFE). 

Despite these benefits of the thorium MSR, it is worth noting that this is not a new technology. The US military conducted an extensive development program with hopes to use the MSR to power long-range bombers. During their lifecycle, these reactors operated only 40 per cent of the time, compared to the average commercial reactor at 90 per cent. From 1945 to 1969 it was shut down 225 times, of these, only 58 were planned. 

One of the major limitations of an MRS is that the materials used to manufacture molten salt-reactor components must maintain their integrity in highly radioactive and corrosive environments at elevated temperatures. Currently, few alloys can survive these extremes. 

Still, as well as the Terrapower/Core Power project, South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has partnered with Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to develop MSR nuclear-powered vessels, with DNV exploring nuclear fission as a source of power.

The question of crewing these vessels is a daunting one. One of the contributing factors to the decommissioning of the first nuclear-powered commercial vessel, the USS Savannah , in the 1970s was the extreme wages needed to attract sufficiently qualified reactor engineers away from relatively more comfortable jobs overseeing land-based power stations.

A vessel without the need for constant bunkering, and with the significantly more efficient use of internal spaces without traditional fuel tanks has obvious benefits. A cruising range governed by provisions, waste and crew turnovers and not fuel is most definitely not limitless, however. As many expedition yachts will tell you, there is a long list of limiting factors beyond fuel that must be addressed. The imperfect history of the MSR should give the industry pause also. This would represent a technological jump beyond anything the superyacht industry has so far attempted and only addresses some of the many complex issues that surround the environmental impact of a superyacht. 

The utopian dreams of nuclear power providing power supplies that are  'too cheap to charge for' have not eventuated as predicted a couple of generations ago. Safety concerns are one factor. The complexities of physics and public perception are others. In an industry still grappling with how to effectively and safely crew today's expanding fleet, and with alternative fuels further complicating the situation for Flag and Class, the nuclear equation may still be a step too far to meet the impending emissions targets.

Hopefully, the commercial sector and cruising industries can outline a safe and effective platform to build from, and some of these 'crazy concepts' that were written off as too outlandish could become a zero carbon reality for a few superyachts. 

 References:

https://www.rina.org.uk/TNA_Nuclear_powered_ships_are_they_worth_their_salt.html

https://whatisnuclear.com/thorium.html

https://thebulletin.org/2022/06/molten-salt-reactors-were-trouble-in-the-1960s-and-they-remain-trouble-today/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/11/09/international-marine-shipping-industry-considers-nuclear-propulsion/?sh=5091b494562c

https://whatisnuclear.com/msr.html

https://www.iaea.org/topics/molten-salt-reactors

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Is nuclear a viable option for the superyacht industry?.

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Actual reactors on superyachts probably aren't going to happen Jack. However superyachts running on nuclear "eFuels" will probably be a thing at some point (as will airliners and cargo ships running on eFuels). Nuclear efuels are liquid hydrocarbons such as methanol produced thermochemically from seawater using the high heat (~750C) that a 4th generation nuclear reactor like a molten salt reactor is able to provide. Current presurized water reactors can only provide heat around 300 celcius due to being water cooled (even under high pressure water starts to break down much above 300 degrees).

Floating molten salt power plants on barges do seem much more likely though:

https://www.seaborg.com/the-reactor

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The U.S. once built a nuclear ship ... for passengers

Geoff Brumfiel

Regina G. Barber

Berly McCoy

Rebecca Ramirez

The bridge of the NS Savannah , equipped with weather and communication instruments, would send orders to the reactor control room. Meredith Rizzo for NPR hide caption

The bridge of the NS Savannah , equipped with weather and communication instruments, would send orders to the reactor control room.

In the Port of Baltimore, a ship is docked that hasn't transported passengers for more than 50 years. And although it stopped only after a few years, largely due to a lack of money, it was successful in part.

That's because the ship, the NS Savannah , was the first and only nuclear-powered passenger ship. And it was meant to show that nuclear power could be used for peaceful purposes. Science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel took a tour of the ship and talks to host Regina G. Barber about why it was built, how it worked and why it was the only one of its kind.

To see more pictures of Geoff's visit to the NS Savannah , including one from 1962 when the ship was operational, click this link .

Want to learn more about nuclear power? Email us at [email protected] .

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify , Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts .

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy with help from Geoff Brumfiel. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by Geoff. Patrick Murray provided audio engineering support.

• passenger ship
• N.S. Savannah

Tickets for a nuclear-powered superyacht will cost $3 million for VIPs and be free to scientists and students selected to help study climate change

• The Earth 300 ship is designed to be emission-free and powered by nuclear energy.
• Aaron Olivera, the CEO of Earth 300, wants to bring the "brightest and smartest" scientists aboard.
• The ship is scheduled to set sail in 2025 with 160 scientists and 40 VIP guests.

You can hitch a 10-day ride on a nuclear-powered, emission-free yacht for the price of $3 million, or take the trip for free if you're a lucky student or scientist selected to be on board to help study the effects of climate change .

The yacht, called the Earth 300, will be a global icon for science, according to its website . The plan is for it to set sail in 2025 with 160 scientists on board from a variety of disciplines, 20 students, 165 staff, and 40 VIP guests who can each pay $3 million for their tickets. 

Aaron Olivera, the CEO of Earth 300, told Money FM he thought of the yacht and voyage in 2015, when he went scuba diving in the Maldives and saw dead coral that was killed by the overacidification in the ocean.

He then came up with the idea to bring the "brightest and smartest" scientists aboard a new-age ship to work together to come up with solutions to climate change .

The design of the ship, which will be powered by safe and sustainable atomic energy from a molten-salt reactor, has 22 "cutting-edge" laboratories that have artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, real-time data processing, and the latest quantum computer, according to the website.

"It's state-of-the-art science at sea," Olivera said on Money FM on April 9. 

Read more: Carnival and Royal Caribbean salaries revealed: From $32,000 to $383,000, here's how much the cruise industry's power players pay some of their employees

The vessel has a sleek look. It's 300 meters long, which is about three and one-third football fields, by 46 meters wide, translating to about 1 1/2 basketball courts, by 60 meters tall at its highest point, or about the height of an 18-story building.

"It's a vessel that's got the overall size of a cruise ship, but it's not a cruise ship. It's got the overall look of a superyacht, but it's not a superyacht," Olivera said on the radio show. "It's got the technology to rival an aircraft carrier, but it's not an aircraft carrier. It's going to have the endurance and the exploration skills of an explorer vessel, but it's not an explorer vessel. It's all of those put together in one package."

Before founding Earth 300, Olivera was the president of Falcon Royal Yachts, where he helped create two luxury megayachts designed by Porsche, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he worked at Corporate Grand, creating elite dining and entertainment experiences for the ultrawealthy.

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The CEO has "experiences in a myriad of industries, from training and development, to publishing, hospitality, retail and yachting," according to his bio on the Earth 300 website. 

When asked why he decided to create a ship to be the vessel for studying climate change, Olivera said, "The oceans are the beating heart of the planet. Without oceans , there cannot be any life."

But the proposal still has a ways to go.

Olivera has already funneled $5 million into the design, and European and South Korean shipyards are likely to carry out the construction, according to reporting from Entrepreneur . The news site said the total cost of the ship would be about $500 million to $700 million, with some funding coming from private investors.

"The idea was to design an object that would be able to capture everybody's imaginations on a global scale," Olivera said on Money FM, adding: "There's nothing like this."

Watch: Why pollen makes you sneeze

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Solar-powered 60m Feadship en route to begin sea trials

The 59.5-metre Project 713 has departed Feadship 's facilities in De Vries and is now believed to be called B , according to the name on her transom. This marks the first sighting since her launch last month, as well as the first time her solar panelling has been seen up close.

Project 713 will harness solar energy and HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil), making it another important milestone in Feadship's roadmap to net-zero yacht building by 2030. 

The yacht features design by Sinot and Studio De Voogt , with the owner playing a huge role in the yacht's design and eco credentials. 

The yacht is part of a series of successful sustainability-focused yachts launched by Feadship in the last 12 months, beginning with HVO-powered Obsidian , fuel-cell fitted Project 821 and hybrid-electric certified Project 1012 .

Project 713 is the first Feadship to carry solar cells for auxiliary power generation, and these were described by the yard as one of the most efficient and durable on the market. Custom-made in the Netherlands, the solar panels can produce up to 24 MWh annually.

Diesel-electric energy allows both the propulsion and the hotel load to be powered by four generators and a 400 kWh battery. The yacht has an enviable YETI (Yacht Environmental Transparency Index) score in the top 35 per cent of the fleet, and like all new Feadships, can run on non-fossil HVO.

According to BOATPro , Project 713 joins 15 other Feadships in build or on order.

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Ranked: 5 Best Attack Submarines on Planet Earth in 2024

Summary and Key Points: Despite the notion that all military submarines are designed for offensive operations, "attack submarines" specifically target other vessels, including enemy subs and warships.

-Among the world's elite attack submarines are the Russian Project 945A Kondor Class (Sierra II) and Project 885 Yasen (Severodvinsk), the British Astute-class, and the American Virginia and Seawolf-classes.

-These submarines boast advanced stealth, speed, and weaponry, making them formidable assets in naval warfare.

Top 5 Attack Submarines in the World: The Best of the Best

To the uninformed, it would seem that all military submarines are designed to "attack" an enemy. However, even before the advent of ballistic missile submarines – whose purpose is essentially nuclear deterrence – an "attack submarine" specializes in combat with other vessels, including enemy subs and warships, as well as merchant shipping.

Where the confusion lies is that some attack submarines can be armed with cruise missiles, which increase the scope of their potential to strike land targets. Moreover, the Soviet and Russian navies employed the term "multi-purpose submarines."

Today, more than two dozen nations operate attack submarines, but these five classes stand out as the absolute best of the best.

Project 945A Kondor Class – Sierra II

The Sierra II Class, also known as Project 945A Kondor Class, remains among the Russian Navy's most expensive and deep-diving submarines. The boats were specifically developed for search and destroy missions against U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

A follow-up to the Sierra I, the class was unique due to its light and strong titanium twin-pressure hulls, which featured space in between. That enabled the boats to dive to greater depths, while it reduced the level of radiated noise and increased resistance to torpedo attacks. The boats were also powered by a single OK-650 pressurized water reactor, rated at 190 MW.

It had greater speed and diving depth than its American counterparts at the time it was designed and would have been a serious threat if the Cold War turned hot. Two of the submarines were completed – the Pskov (ex-Zubatka) and Nizhny Novgorod (ex-Okun) – and both remain operational with the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet. A third of the class, Mars, was laid down in 1990. That boat was built to an improved Project 945B (NATO designation Sierra III class), but it was scrapped before completion in 1992.

Project 885 Yasen – Severodvinsk

Even as many of Russia's military platforms have appeared to be overly hyped – and its surface navy is in a truly sorry state, its Yasen-class submarines (NATO reporting name "Severodvinsk") are still considered to be among the best in the world.

Along with the Russian Navy's Borei-class ballistic missile submarines, the Yasen-class boats are reported to play a central role in Russia's defense and deterrence. The cruise missile subs were developed in the late 1980s by the St. Petersburg-based Malakhit Design Bureau of Machine-Building. It was initially intended to replace the aging Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarines. However, the program progressed slowly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While the lead vessel, Severodvinsk, was laid down in 1993, due to funding issues as a result of Russia’s financial crisis, the project sputtered in the following decade.

Only in the late 2000s, did Moscow return to the project, but by that point, it was seen as being on the verge of obsolescence. Instead of starting from scratch, however, the Kremlin opted to relaunch the Yasen-class under the Yasen-M designation, which saw a slew of design tweaks and performance upgrades to address the roughly to-decade gap between Severodvinsk and the next Yasen-class submarine, Kazan.

Unlike older attack submarines built in the late Soviet period, the Yasen-M class boats were developed as multi-purpose vessels that could carry different weapons, including the most advanced new long-range Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missiles. There are ten silos for vertically launched cruise missiles, and according to reports, the submarines can also be equipped with Kalibr-PL and Oniks cruise missiles as their basic strike weapons. The Kazan is also equipped with the UKSK (3P-14B) vertical launch system comprised of 8SM-346 modules.

Astute-class

The Royal Navy's Astute-class were the first nuclear submarines in the world to be designed in a 3D computer-aided environment. While not as well known as their American or Russian counterparts, they are considered among some of the best on Earth.

The boats have been outfitted with many technological firsts, including not having an optical periscope. Instead, high-specification video technology has been employed, which enables the crew to scan the horizon and get a 360-degree view to address any potential threat.

In addition, unlike other nuclear-powered submarines, the Astute-class was developed to utilize state-of-the-art anti-acoustic tiles. Each hull is fitted with more than 39,000 acoustic tiles that mask the vessel’s sonar signature and allow the submarines to glide through the water almost silently.

The Astute-class submarines have stowage for 38 weapons and typically carry a mix of Spearfish heavy torpedoes and Tomahawk Block IV cruise missiles, which are capable of hitting a target within a few meters, to a range of 1,000 miles (1,600 km). The submarines' countermeasures suite includes decoys and electronic support measures (ESM).

Virginia-class

At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy shifted its focus from preparing for open-ocean conflict to dominating littoral areas. As a result, it developed its Virginia class to operate in the world's coastal and deep waters alike.

This has resulted in a flexible, multi-mission platform that can carry out anti-submarine, anti-surface, strike and irregular warfare, as well as operate in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The Virginia-class submarine can be used to deliver special operations forces support and also participate in mine warfare roles.

The Virginia class also offered several other innovations that have significantly enhanced its warfighting capabilities including an emphasis on its ability to conduct littoral operations. The subs feature a fly-by-wire ship control system, which improved the shallow-water ship handling, while the boats also have been outfitted to support forces operations. The submarines' torpedo rooms can also be reconfigured to house a small unit of special operations forces such as Navy SEALs and their equipment. The class also features a large lock-in-lock chamber for divers.

Eight of the Block V boats that are now being built will be equipped with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) – a mid-body section that will increase the overall length of the boats. This will add four additional Virginia Payload Tubes, which have been replacing the submarines' single-purpose cruise missile launch tubes. This will increase the number of Tomahawk missiles that the vessels carry – and thus replace some of the Navy's missile strike capabilities that would be been lost when the Ohio-class submarines are retired from the fleet.

Seawolf-class

Designed to address the threat of Soviet ballistic missile submarines, and to replace the aging Los Angeles class of submarines, the Seawolf-­class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSN) has been described as the best of the best.

It featured a modular design that allowed for later upgrades including weapons development and better sonar systems, and was thus very much "future-proof." It had a maximum speed of 35k dived and a 'silent' speed of 20k.

While the Seawolf-class does not have any external weapons, it was designed with eight torpedo tubes twice as many as the Los Angeles class, along with a double-deck torpedo room to allow for simultaneous engagement of multiple threats.

A total of 29 boats were to be constructed over a 10-year period – a number that was then reduced to 12 – but only three were launched. But then the Cold War ended, and the Seawolf-class may have been the best of the best.

Still, at approximately $3 to $3.5 billion per vessel, the program was simply too expensive, especially in the wake of changing global geopolitics.

Author Experience and Expertise

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs . You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu .

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