Nuclear power is perhaps one of the most divisive inventions in history. Its advocates point to almost unlimited energy with minimal pollution and waste, providing power for an ever-more power hungry world.

Of course this is only one part of the story, and its detractors would equally point to the equally unlimited damage which can be caused by a failure of a nuclear power plant. Everything is always fine until it isn’t, of course, but when a nuclear reaction isn’t fine this can easily lead to a worst case scenario: a nuclear wasteland uninhabitable for generations.

But there was a time there where nuclear power was seen as paving the path to a brave new world of free energy. The bomb may have come first, but it is unarguably nuclear power generation which has changed the world much faster, and to a much greater extent.

Forward thinkers and planners, half entranced by this new source of power and half jumping on the bandwagon of its popularity, sought to power almost anything with nuclear power. Spacecraft, airships, even cars and other passenger vehicles: all were given nuclear engines although, thankfully, none were actually built.

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Almost none. There was one example of a nuclear-powered civilian vehicle which made it into production, albeit only as a single example. The NS Savannah was an American merchant ship, fully powered by an onboard reactor and launched in 1959. 

When launched she was by far the cleanest ship in her class. She could carry cargo or passengers anywhere in the world, powered by an entirely new reactor design, and could go for years without refueling. She could travel a theoretical 550,000 km at up to 44 km/h, making her a class leader in speed and blowing away the competition in efficiency.

President Eisenhower saw the Savannah as part of his “Atoms for Peace” initiative, proving the viability of nuclear technology for so much more than warfare and general destruction. Yet the Savannah only sailed the seas for ten years, from 1962 to 1972.

She never had a nuclear accident, never had any problems with her reactor. And yet this proof of concept for nuclear-powered civilian ships was ultimately a failure.

Why did the NS Savannah fail?

An Exercise in Diplomacy

When Savannah went into service in 1962 she was a wonder to behold. At 180m long and with three decks above the cargo spaces, this beautiful white ship had no smokestacks belching black smoke into the sky, no pollutants of any kind: she simply glided through the water, silently and peacefully.

Safety was, of course, ahuge part of the Savannah’s design. She was built with a series of nine watertight compartments to minimize the risk of accidental sinking. Seven of the compartments were cargo holds, and an eighth held machinery. The ninth held the nuclear reactor, isolated from the rest of the ship.

Passengers who traveled aboard could stay in one of the 30 staterooms, and enjoy the large dining facilities, movie theater and library, all while traveling the world in comfort and luxury. Savannah’s proportions made her appear more like a giant yacht than a commercial ship, all part of creating this atmosphere of elegance and looking to the future.

So, why did she fail? Well there are several reasons, both related to the ship herself and the wider world she found herself in. Put simply, she was never intended to pave the way for others such as herself: she was to champion nuclear propulsion, not to serve as a viable shipping service.

180m is extremely small for a cargo ship, and Savannah was dwarfed by her competition. Of course she doubled as a passenger liner, but here again she fell short: Savannah tried to be both types of ship, and fell short on both counts. 

She could carry only 7,700 tons of cargo and fewer passengers than her own dining room could accommodate. These were rookie numbers, and she was, as designed, never going to be serious competition for existing ships.

Then there was the squeamishness shown about nuclear powered vessels by the rest of the world. Many ports were unwilling to allow a nuclear reactor to sit in their harbors, either charging enormous port fees or outright banning her.

None of these were insurmountable, of course. Nuclear powered vessels run by the militaries of several states travel the seas regularly and have done so for decades. Finding a way to berth Savannah in civilian ports was only a matter of infrastructure, and were she to be proven a success these were solvable problems for her larger, more practical successors.

But the real problem was, of course, money. Savannah was estimated to cost some $2,000,000 more than a comparable ship under conventional power every year, ruining her chances of ever being economically viable.

Her crew outnumbered both other comparable crews and their own passengers, and needed special training to operate the reactor. Her nuclear reactor was extremely expensive and potentially hazardous to refuel and maintain, and there was simply no cargo which justified this cost to deliver. Her design also made cargo loading a more challenging and expensive proposition.

In 1971, with oil prices as low as $20 a barrel, Savannah was retired from service. In truth she had only served as a passenger ship for three years, carrying only 480 people from 1962 to 1965.

But was her failure entirely unrelated to her nuclear propulsion? Could the concept, in a more practical design, have worked? Well, not entirely: there was a dirty secret at the heart of NS Savannah.

At designed, the low-level radioactive waste produced by her fission reactor was stored in onboard tanks. However these tanks had a total capacity of 38,000 liters, and Savannah needed far more space than that.

In her first year alone Savannah disposed of ten times her capacity, some 440,000 liters of this waste, at sea. Out there in the middle of nowhere, where nobody could see, it seems that Savannah was responsible for her own pollution. 

Nuclear ships may be made to work. Who knows, in the future perhaps a fleet of larger, more practically designed NS Savannahs might lead us into this brave new world. But the NS Savannah, in fact and by design, was not the ship to do it.

Top Image: The brand new NS Savannah in 1962. Source: US Government / Public Domain.