I’m in my 50’s, so may the youth forgive me, but there’s something about the way these pieces were made that makes them special. When I watch, I can instantly remember my youth. It’s the narration, everything always being backed by a orchestral piece. It’s very well done. These days, I can’t read a CNN story without seeing two or three typos. I hope some young journalists can watch these older videos and put a new twist on older excellence.
There can't have been any typos in a modern story. All the "thumb-wizards" have spell-check on their smart phones. Yeah, right. I guess some think it's fine that there are few great newspapers anymore, but at least those professionals could spell and properly choose which word to use.
What is most interesting is that a nuclear-powered ship pre-dates the container revolution. Although containers existed in 1964, the format wasn't standardized until 1968 and that is when things really took off.
@@whatisnuclear There actually is a nuclear-powered cargo ship (with ice-breaking capability) in active operation, the russian NS Sevmorput. Completed in 1988, taken out of service in 2007 but eventually refitted and refueled and returned to service in 2016.
@@whatisnuclear Also apparently there's at least two groups that recently started exploring the feasibility of (re)introducing nuclear propulsion for merchant ships: the NuProShip project of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and a South Korean coalition that includes several marine shipping companies and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute.
You know the first occurance of Containerisation on a purpose built vessel happened in my hometown - Fremantle, Western Australia - on a Ship called 'Kooringa' in 1964
I was so tickled to see this video come up. My dad was an engineer that helped with the design and construction of her reactor, and he had a model of the Savannah. The model isn't in good condition now (he passed away a couple of years ago), but even with being familiar with the ship from his stories and model, they really didn't grasp how beautiful a ship the Savannah really was.
I got to walk through her as a kid when she was being decomissioned in the Houston area because of my Dad's role in the process. Makes me sad for the progress we haven't made but thought we would. :(
@@uku4171 a combination of things. She was a technology demonstrator and a hybrid freighter/passenger liner, which meant she wasn’t profitable at either (although the small contingent of passengers sounds wonderful compared to the floating anthills and stomach bug breeding grounds that cruise ships today are!). Worse, many ports wouldn’t let her dock. I’m honestly surprised that she’s still intact 50 years after I saw her, and I sure hope they preserve her somehow.
when i was in the U S Coast Guard in the 1960s i boarded the NS Savannah when it entered New York Harbor a few times. it was a beautiful ship. when we went aboard it was so quiet no engine vibration at all , no diesel oil fumes, and she was a very clean ship. the problem with this ship was the fact that people were so afraid of nuclear power and i don't think it carried much cargo at all. when you see the way this ship was constructed and the care that went into it's construction it is amazing. this was supposed to be the start of a nuclear merchant marine. it's sad it didn't happen.i built a model of this ship after i left the Coast Guard and this model had a place on it so you could see the reactor. this was a fantastic ship.
A little intresting sidenote. De Laval who made the Turbines for Svannah is a Swedish brand and was at the time the most renowned manufacturer of Turbines for industrial use, Infact most power plants around the world would have a De laval turbine in the age of Savannah. Also Sweden was during the same era more or less bulding the largest cargo and tanker ships in the world with Arendalsvarvet and Götaverken beeing the biggest and the city of Gothenburg (hometown of Volvo) beeing the centerpoint of the tonnage built.
I visited the Savannah when it called at Rotterdam in the 1960s on a goodwill visit. I remember it being clean and quiet, i.e. much different than most of the rickety old coasters and elderly RN warships that I also had the chance to visit there. I also was allowed to visit HMS Dreadnought, the RN's first nuclear sub, when it made a goodwill visit there; it was much cleaner, less smellier and more spacious than diesel subs. I may have been the world's only 9-year-old boy who's been on two prototype nuclear vessels. Fun times!
While in he Navy in 1964 I visited family in Wilmington, North Carolina and with my cousin we visited and toured the Savanna that was moored there. This was the first nuclear powered vessel I ever stepped aboard. I later served on a Nuclear submarine until 1968 when I left the service. I've since been aboard around a dozen vessels powered by a nuclear reactor.
I remember seeing this as a film at school. I think Dinky Toys made a model of it. I think there was resistance to having a nuclear ship in harbour in much the same way that Concord was resisted in later years. I must say the PPE of the construction operatives would not find acceptance today! Wonderful that you have reissued this film.
@@whatisnuclear What was the original format? It does look good. I accidentally threw away a lost episide from a series by Orson Welles that was on Cartrivision. My gpa worked for Avco; got a bunch of players, camera and tapes when the format failed. Orson made the series for Sears, to offer along with the players. Sears owned the rights and never put the series onto another format. I didn't find out the episode was lost until many years after I threw all that stuff away.
Thanks for bring this old video available again. Have bragging rights , I worked at different times at New York Ship My starting job was in the south yard working on two nucellar subs, I believe was the Pollack and the Haddock, I believe. The Kitty Hawk was there too. Left there to as my Father was a boilermaker to pursuer my craft. I returned to NYS as work was slow and spent a few months on SAVANNAH. and returned later to work on CAMDEN. Watching the backgrounds seeing the skyline of the bridge and Southwark station where My son and Grandson now work. Just great to stumble onto the video. Thank You!!
What a time to be alive. I served on the Hawk for a number of years, up to her decomm. Ships are such a marvel, and to serve on one is something else. I wasn’t alive back then to experience this beauty, (Savanna) but I’d love to see her, if she’s still around.
The amount of nuclear waste produced is actually very small compared to the waste produced by other power methods and the waste can be recycled and the chemistry and processes to do so were developed back in the 1960s before they learned how plentiful uranium was in the earth so they gave up the recycling in favor of cheaper mining operations. We could easily recycle the waste if it wasn't cheaper to just mine new uranium. We know how.
I saw this ship years ago in Virginia on the James river when it was kept in the US Navy mothball fleet. It was anchored with a bunch of mothballed ships.
Imagine this, it was 1984ish, my mom dropped me off at Patriots Point in Charleston SC while she went shopping downtown. I was 12 at the time, it was a Tuesday maybe, not one single other soul was there that day. The Savannah had a single gangway going up the side, I had complete free reign of that ship, among others, that entire day. I vividly remember everything about it, it looked exactly as in this video, I went into every space I could get into. It was in pretty good condition at the time, all the furnishings, drapes, carpets, etc, were intact. I remember the bridge, and swear there was a big window into the control room. Given I’m working on my 3rd decade in the Merchant Marine I sure would love to have that day now. Sadly the Savannah has fallen into disrepair, most of its originality long gone. I have those memories, and a little glass dish that I found in a closet with the ships profile etched onto it. In retrospect, as an adult, I really wish I had interest at the time of the mountains of brochures, menus, just tons of that stuff that was stuffed in rooms and closets.
I got to take a tour of her numerous times in the early 90s when she was at Patriots Point Museum moored next to the USS Yorktown cv-10 in Charleston South Carolina
In my U.S. Navy days, 1976 to 82, I lived on the USS TRUXTUN (CGN-35) for four years. Not one incident or accidental release of reactor radio activity. She ended her years on the sea and was dismantled. Not for Savannah. She sits quietly in Charleston S.C., welcoming the public onto her decks as a reminder of what once was.
She’s no longer moored in Charleston. The patriots point fleet has shrunk in size significantly. The clamagore was scrapped because of her hull condition, the Ingham was moved to key west. The comanche is now an artificial reef and the NS savannah was moved to Baltimore and still serves as a museum ship.
@@whatisnuclearwait it still exists?? I assumed it would have been scrapped decades ago. Havent finished this video yet but now i have to look into this afterwards
Trust me you don't want to know. After years of ecological protesters, She was decommissioned. Later years, they talked about how she was not economical, ignoring that she was never designed to make a profit.
@@whatisnuclear I'll have to check them out! there's so many of these neat films that can be brought to 'real life', so to speak. lots of ww2 and cold war training/educational films come to mind. all those really cool, high-production civilian/defense contractor selling films. exciting!
@@whatisnuclear also i think it's really interesting that a nuclear ship became Merchant Marine history. only one of four ships of it's type in the world ever, and they got it.
I love looking into the past in niche areas. But this film is perfectly 1950s - 1960s informative television. I watched it once for actual watching, but it is also great to listen to in the background as it's calm and reminds me of something id see in a Fallout game.
Nuclear powered merchant ships would have the same problem as the US Navy fast attack submarine in which I operated the nuclear power plant, the number of ports that was open for visits was limited. Many countries, including the US, ban something they do not understand.
@@whatisnuclearI see you are buying the bullshit CO2 nonsense. Any real scientist that is not seeking a grant, fellowship or afraid to tell the truth, they will tell you the CO2 scare tactics have no basis in fact. The whole scheme is to cut out most sources of energy. Energy is life and the plan has been since the early 1900s to reduce and control the global population. Do some research and look up the 1974 Kissinger Report on population. In 1974, they were saying they intend to reduce the population through famine, war and pestilence and if those measures do not work, they will use other means. Without energy or carbon products, food production will go to only a tiny fraction of today's output. The Oligarchy has been planning and wargaming how they will bring about a total Reset of civilization. They want a few worker bees and the remainder will be culled out of the herd. They want the world as their private game preserve. When they go to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Victoria Falls, they don't want to see some dimple ass woman and her calf tatted husband chasing after 3 excited children. The CO2 nonsense is to erase the existence of the vulgar, unwashed masses and that includes you.
Not much of a problem. Savannah went all over Europe, transit Panama Canal. There are half dozen posters here saying they saw Savannah as a kid in Rotterdam, Germany. Blocked in Australia, Japan, NZ. Today, Australia has bought its own nuclear US made subs. NZ is still nuts.
In the spring of 1989 while she was at Patriot's Point in Charleston SC I spent several hours exploring that ship, I found it quite fascinating that nuclear power never took off in cargo ships.
It is very interesting and has a learning experience that I never knew. I see Her everyday day at the Port of Baltimore Baltimore, where she is docked as a museum. Always wanted to tour the ship but never have great video
I think they manufactured a “problem” that would soon need a solution. I’ve seen several documentaries on this ship. I don’t think she lasted too long. If I recall correctly, a lot of ports in the worlds didn’t want t nuclear ship pulling in. It was also a bit strange the way they crossed it between a freighter and passenger ship. Only 60 passengers. It seems they already had in mind that it “might not work out” as a passenger ship, so it could fall back 100% (with renovations) as a freighter. Very good video. I enjoyed this. Thank you.
A big complaint about cruise ships that stop in areas such as European ports is that the whole port town smells like fuel, the commercial world took a big step backwards by not adopting nuclear powered ships. Maybe with the upcoming standardized micro reactors we could move from bunker oil to nuclear power in the near future.
If nuclear powered marine freight could travel twice as fast for nearly the same cost, then they could cut the number of ships in half, thus using less resources like steel etc.
They would have to build a ship much faster than 22 knots. Heck, WWII Battleship USS New Jersey once did 35 knots before they powered the ship back. It had more left in it to go faster according to sailors that day.
@@kman-mi7su All US nuclear navy surface >30 kts. I expect 40 kts for a nuclear cargo vessel is possible in regular seas. There’s no fuel savings concern so why not.
@@jhoncho4x4 yes, though 1000 ton tank of diesel is depleted one trip. Fuel rod lasts two years of operation at least, maybe 20 if right kind of fuel and reactor. So, running at high speed has negligible increased fuel cost.
Interesting to hear that the turbine was delivered by de Laval turbine company, a Swedish brand! Savanna visited Helsingborg, Sweden, in september 1964 and dad and I went onboard. The only thing I remember is that we could look down into the turbine room from the visitors gallery (@23:10). Probably we went up on the bridge as well, but I don't remember that. @26:58 If I remember correct the labor problem was that the chief for the nuclear plant was paid most, which upset others onboard. (But I could be wrong).
The first time I saw this ship was November 1965, tied to a pier in Bremerhaven Germany. The next time I saw her around 1975. She was in the mud on the Savannah river just west of I-95. Sadly she was listing to starboard.
@@justgotohm4775 it was in the mud. I was going north on I-95. The ship was on the left. On the port side of the ship marsh. I assume you driving in the car behind me. That how you know I am wrong,correct?
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer The Savannah River is not navigable for ships above Port Wentworth, it never has been, I95 is several miles inland of there. If you were driving over a large bridge, seeing the Savannah on the left in the mud, it was north bound Hwy 17. I literally grew up in downtown Savannah, and ironically worked on the very river we are discussing for decades. It’s cool you saw it, I have a picture on my wall of when it was coming into Savannah.
Wonderful footage, I just watched a guy with rope wrapped around a metal thing lower the reactor components through a wooden block and tackle. What the hell happened to us? kids don't know if they are boys or girls and this legend built a nuclear reactor with a bit of rope and a wooden block and tackle.
@@obsidianjane4413 Like teaching kids boys can change into girls? Or that America is the most evil nation on earth? Or that "white supremacists" are lurking behind every tree? Or that climate change is destroying the planet? Yeah, no reason to be upset or angry. Just chew an edible and chill. btw What are you getting done being so young, smart, calm and everything?
@@whatisnuclearhe loved that ship. I got to go on it with him back in 2011. He received an award for his time as chief engineer. He passed away in 2012.
The costs were enormous and she was the only one because anti-nuclear activists made the program politically unpopular and made foreign ports closed to her in the 60s and 70s. It if had continued and a serial production type and plant had been developed, nuclear propulsion would have been cheaper over the lifetime of the vessel than oil fueled. And that is without considering the tens of thousands of tons of CO2 and other pollutants each ship produces.
It wasn't the only one. Germany, Japan and the USSR also built nuclear powered cargo ships. But the USSR was the only one to get the whole concept to work. Russia now has over a dozen nuclear merchant ships.
Cargo ship my ass Eisenhower just wanted his own Nuclear Powered Yacht! This looks nothing like a cargo ship in fact it has 100 hotel like suites each outfitted with it's own personal bathroom! I hope Eisenhower at least got to use this beauty for diplomatic missions like to meet other foreign leaders!
Spent fuel as removed in 1971. I'm not entirely sure where it is now, but very likely in dry cask storage somewhere, like the waste from our commercial fleet. It's destined for deep geologic repository once we get the politics worked out, similar to the Onkalo repository in Finland. See: whataboutthewaste.com
15:58 Good God Someone needs to get his butt kicked and sent back to apprentice level rigging school. And on a nuclear project too. I am amazed that they actually showed this in a film.
@@whatisnuclear A shackle sideways like that depends on the strength of the threads on the pin, not the strength of the actual shackle and pin material. Even that "little control rod" dropping into the reactor core would damage things enough to cause the core to be damaged enough that it would have to be removed and disassembled for inspection or REPLACEMENT. When dealing with nuclear reactors, there is no such thing as a little damage. Stupid or unsafe riggers usually end up having accidents in the parking lot.
@@whatisnuclear If you really want to be wondering about it, there is another rigging fail at 16:12. Shoulder less eye bolts. That type of eye bolt is only to be used in a straight line pull, no side loading. At all. There should have been a spreader bar between the crane hook and rigging. You might want to try looking at a riggers handbook, all kinds of interesting stuff in them. Bobs Rigging and Crane Handbook is one of the best.
The story doesn’t end here. Savannah is presently in Baltimore. I and some friends are working on reactivating the control-room for display/educational purposes. Here’s a video of me pressing “Lamp Test” on a couple of the panels, after powering up the panel for the first time in half a century: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UMOFP8V8dLU.html . Note that the filaments of many of the incandescent bulbs are broken. We will eventually replace them with LEDs. Our hope is to have a modern computer simulating the reactor, so the instruments respond to control-inputs realistically. (MELTDOWN - GAME OVER) Interfacing with the 1957-style high-voltage AC circuitry will be a challenge, but not as big a challenge as interfacing with the pneumatic controls. Several areas of the ship have been restored, and they even found enough original Naugahyde to reupholster the Purser’s Lounge. Savannah is open to the public one day a year, usually the third Sunday in May. Someday it may be open to the public year-round, once all the asbestos and PCBs are removed. ;-)
How much of the original electronics were vacuum tube? I’ve gotten a control room tour, but they didn’t pop the door to the instrumentation room behind it :(
@@philipnasadowski1060 Near as I can tell, EVERYTHING was originally vacuum tube, however instruments were swapped in and out, and some of the later instruments had digital displays and presumably solid-state electronics, but those components have been removed so there appears to be nothing solid-state there now. Various things were removed as souvenirs, as the ship has been passed around for half a century and rigorous records were not kept. Examining the control panel is sort of like doing an archaeological dig, as we find someplace where there used to be something installed, then removed and puttied-over, then something else installed, so holes with different outlines overlap. We’re studying photo of the control panel from different years to determine what order things were done in.
Sounds like my life doing work in water / wastewater. Sometimes you get an ancient plant where the wiring doesn’t match anything. I haven’t seen tube electronics in one, and I like tube stuff…
I seem to recall reading that there was a TV camera in the containment, and a TV in the lounge, so passengers could see the excitement of a nuclear reactor in action 🙄 No surprise the sound system was tube - no transistors back then could even do the power output required. I’d love to see what tge original tube instrument racks were like. At such an early time, there likely wasn’t much standardization, or regard to packaging. Even color broadcasting gear from the era looked more experimental than something RCA was trying to sell…
Idk what you are talking about, we have more than people in the past could have even dreamed about. All of knowledge at our fingertips. I personally think this is a better future, especially if you know your history and just how bad it was in the past 120 years. Not trying to rag on you and you're entitled to your opinion, but we have it easy now comparatively. If you are speaking specifically about nuclear energy, yeah we should be building more plants. But if you are talking in general, then I think you have some blinders on to the reality of the past. If you personally are having a hard time, I apologize, I'm not trying to be mean. I just think a lot of us don't realize just how bad life was respective to what we enjoy now. And for more unsolicited opinions, which I apologize for in advance, in the past when things were hard or difficult we dealt with it and tried to fix it.
@@alexcrouse then I agree with you, my mistake. Thought you were complaining about how awful the world is to live in right now. But even so, that would be your prerogative so maybe I was a little out of line. Mea culpa
@@FreejackVesaHow do you arrive at the notion “all our knowledge at our fingertips”? Do you imagine you can do brain surgery with a smart phone, or have any real idea what life is like in a Uighur concentration camp?
Look again. Our mothballed fleet is now practically nonexistent. The only reason that we maintain naval superiority in today's world is that our most likely adversaries have crap ships and worse maintenance.
@@Kaspertube513Compare the tonnage... the US still has like four times the tonnage. China has a lot of small vessels that aren't designed for extended blue water deployment. Since WWII the USN has far and away out deployed virtually every nation on the planet in both amount and distance from home. China still has a hard row to hoe to actually catch up to the USN's capabilities. The USN has operated a globe spanning blue water navy for centuries we wrote the book on fleet carrier operations 80 years ago. China has yet to venture outside their third island chain. When was the last time the Chinese had a naval victory against a foreign power?
Our mothballed fleets of virtually everything would require months if not years to reactivate. This isn't Most of the vessels and planes in "boneyards" are there because they are used up and outdated. Most of the stuff at Davis - Monthan AFB isn't worth a wet fart in today's combat environment. If they were we'd be sending them to Ukraine. IIRC about 1% of the aircraft in mothball storage could be reactivated within 30 days. A large portion of the fleet has been cannibalized to some degree.
@@JoeBLOWFHB when was the last time the US won a war ? Because they got recked in Vietnam, Afghanistan...the proxy war in Ukraine they have lost already.. China would absolutely destroy the US in a war that is a fact.
Mrs. Eisenhower was there for the launching after the ship was complete, but that scene is indeed Mrs. Nixon starting the laying of the keel using an atomic wand! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Bo14h9_DKVY.html
I agree that modern diesels are very efficient. Sadly, they emit lots of particulate air pollution and greenhouse gas, and require a limited fossil resource. For those three reasons, we'll want to switch over to nuclear fuel for shipping.
@@whatisnuclear I remember back in the 70's the experts said we only had 100 years of oil reserves left. The found reserves of oil is greater now. After treatment of exhaust gases solves that problem. Just look at current diesel trucks. The simplicity of a diesel engine to produce, to maintain and to train personnel to operate it will never be beat. If nuclear powered freighters were viable it would have already happened. Savanna is 60 years in the past. It was the only one for a reason.
@@whatisnuclear upwards of 90%+ of diesel pollution can be captured by fairly simple and cheap exhaust treatment systems. the mining of uranium and its processing has had profound environmental impacts. which is worse, Im not sure anyone could definitively answer. nuclear is clearly not the end-all-be-all for numerous reasons
Large majority of nations let her in. Went all over Europe, transit Panama Canal, Blocked in NZ Australia, Japan, as they did with US nuclear naval ships at the time. NZ still does. Now, Australia buying its own nuclear submarines, as they understand they have to defend themselves from China.
Nothing like this could get ANYWHERE these days. It was really just a technology demonstrator with minimal cargo capacity but the commercial refueling infrastructure they would have had to attract never materialized. Beautiful failure though. The four big ships I'd personally like to sail on, the SS United States, the Normandie, the RMS Mauretania, and this. The latter three definitely won't happen and the first is vanishingly unlikely absent a couple $billion. Fascinating to see them moving paper sketches around, today it'd be all CATIA and Solidworks...
Man, did they ever get that wrong about nuclear being the future of cargo or cruise ships. She only carried passengers a few times, and wasn't set up very well for cargo or passengers being a proof of concept. The sailors who were on the nuclear side were paid significantly more than the ones on the turbine side of the propulsion which is what caused the labor troubles mentioned.
The proof-of-concept ship wasn't ever intended to be the economical commercial ship. This was stated up front. We'll get more nuclear-powered merchant ships yet. corepower.energy/
@@whatisnuclear It would have been a much better investment to make a straight cargo or even better for the reactor in the middle, straight cruise ship. Trying to be everything to everyone never works out well.
This happens in the civvy nuke business as well. Been on Navy nukes? You bringing a security clearance? You just scored. One of the costs associated with running a civilian nuke power plant is recruiting ex-Navy.
@@toomanyuserids that’s ok to have a couple ex navy nuke and pay them well. The problem is nrc insisting plant needs 500 staff to run a reactor, when 12 can run a same size gas plant in combo w a roving maintenance crew.
I saw the ship when she called at San Francisco in 1962. Good idea but too early. A nuke reactor would be great for these modern 100,000 ton container ships in service now. But it also calls for smart seamen.
If you are going to crew the ship with a random collection of Third Worlders, no matter how good they are, (a) the US won't give them a security clearance and (b) there's no program to train them to Rickover standards even if they could.
USS Nautilus was launched in 1954, operational 1955. Lenin was the first surface ship, though those familiar dont mention it because the reactor was a piece of junk which leaked and melted down, compared to the later, capable Soviet nuclear navy. Lol, paranoid and defensive and wrong Russians
There's only one cargo ship with nuclear propulsion left today: the Russian Sevmorput I hope civilian atom tech rises again with a new level of technology
@@46bovine It wasn't just a "60's thing". Even into the 90's, a bar without ashtrays soon went broke due to lack of customers. In the 80's you could walk through Safeway with a lit cig while grocery shopping and nobody said a word. Ashtrays were available. Sometime in the 80's was also when the concept of separate seating for smokers really came into play. Before that, if you didn't want to see an ashtray on the dinner table, you just didn't go out to eat. Spent many hours in '85-'86 smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee with my friends in a corner booth at Denny's.
@@UQRXD No, but it was so widely excepted, I really don’t have the experience to answer that. I smoked years ago and never smoked in my house, also never smoked around non smokers if I was the odd man out.
Well yeah, but ships go down all the time. Need to get the pod motors and steam electric generators, make the nukes float and you have some better security
“During its first year at sea, the ship dumped 115,000 gallons of radioactive waste into the ocean.” - Wired magazine. Big oof. Great job on digitization though.
There are more than 2000 large cellular container ships whose diesel engines consume equivalently all the oil produced by Saudi Arabia every year. Nuclear powered ships, rated at 87 megawatts, could relieve the planet of all that CO2 pollution.
So we're is it know, hop it's made it to a floating museum. Amazing eleven years after ww2 and fourty five years after the Wright brothers. We should be in deep space by now. Amazing rates of progress over such a small time. So the question is why didn't they rest of the merchant fleet industry across the world not adopte this technology, the advantages too the systems of propulsion based on oil and coal are obvious.
Friend if you really think about all the human errors in navigation errors over the years with collisions , running aground and fires . The fall out would be astronomically huge for life and environment compared to fossil fuels. The US has an issue with one of its decommissioned aircraft carrier which they are scrapping , its costing as much to despose the reactor and it components as it was to build the ship . Almost.
Considering that there are hundreds of nuclear-powered vessels in the oceans and have been for decades with minimal radiation releases, I don't think this argument stands. Fossil engines emit particulates and greenhouse gasses always, during operation. Nuclear-powered engines emit nothing during operation. The safety case is clear, nuclear would be way better than what we have today.
