ChNPP (CC BY 2.0)
A floating nuclear power plant model, 2008.
If you’ve read works from Arthur C. Clarke and other science fiction writers of the 1950s, you may remember the once-popular sci-fi concept of underwater cities powered by nuclear energy. While we may still be a ways from living in those underwater cities, nukes at sea are a step closer to becoming a reality.
On July 22, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of the Interior signed a memorandum of understanding creating a framework to determine who will control civilian nuclear power projects on the 3.2 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf.
“Submerged reactor systems [on nuclear submarines] have been safely deployed in naval applications for decades, demonstrating their potential as a reliable source of energy,” noted Matt Giacona, the DOI’s acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and a former lobbyist for the offshore oil industry.
On the same day, the Department of Transportation and the Port of Long Beach, California, part of the largest port complex in the western hemisphere, signed a memorandum of cooperation to test small modular reactors for commercial vessels and port operations.
In fact, the idea of commercial nukes at sea was never limited to science fiction. In his 1966 book, Challenge of the Seven Seas, Democratic Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island imagined that the nation was just thirty years away from having nuclear-powered underwater resorts and submarine oil tankers tapping sub-arctic oil fields.
Any future visitor to some underwater resort, however, is likely to see fewer fish through their viewports. President Donald Trump just ordered three of the Pacific’s vast “no-take” marine monuments opened to commercial fishing. What they will likely see instead is endless seascapes made up of miles of globular oily sludge and an asphalt speckled seafloor, which is what more than 1,200 square miles of the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico now looks like following the 2010 BP oil spill.
This hasn’t deterred the Trump Administration from promoting offshore oil drilling for the entire west coast and off of Alaska. Along with the risk of toxic oil drifting down onto your underwater resort, you might also see some deep-sea mining sites with giant bulldozer-like robots or monster-sized vacuum tractors tethered to surface vessels off of American Samoa or in international waters if NOAA’s attempts to fast-track these mining permits is not halted.
The impetus for the memorandum on offshore nukes can be traced back to 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” program saw the launch of the NS Savannah, an almost 600-foot-long nuclear-powered cargo and passenger ship that was in service from 1962 to 1972. But the ship never proved to be commercially competitive, and today the Maritime Administration is in the process of removing the Savannah’s final radioactive components in order to decommission it by the end of 2031.
And while the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) had long delayed action on the transition from dirty greenhouse gas heavy diesel fuel to non-carbon power, the IMO, under pressure from the EU, Island States, and others, is today pushing for a transition to non-carbon, including revived discussion of nuclear-powered shipping. Russia presently has eight nuclear powered icebreakers, as well as port operations.
Companies interested in expanding nuclear options include Westinghouse Electric, Holtec International and Valar Atomics that recently partnered with Nvidia on nuke-powered AI infrastructure. China has deployed the first underwater AI Data Center, six miles off the coast of Shanghai while Russia has a floating nuclear plant in the Arctic.
One company heavily invested in developing barge-based nukes and nuclear-powered commercial shipping is British-based Core Power. The company opened an office in Washington, D.C. five years ago and cut a deal with Westinghouse for the design and development of floating nuclear power plants. Since then, Core Power has filled its ranks with influencers including Robert Bryans, formerly chief of staff for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and John Richardson, the former chief of naval operations for the U.S. Navy. A smaller company, Bluecore, based at the Port of Long Beach, put out a press release on July 21 announcing that it has delivered its first barge and electric test reactor to its port headquarters, just in time for the port’s agreement with the Department of Transportation.
At a nuclear maritime event in Houston last year, Core Power CEO Mikal Bøe promised a “U.S. anchored” program to bring floating nuclear power to market by the mid-2030s. Like AI data centers and crypto-mines before them, floating nukes may be the next big thing no one knows about until it happens. And that’s the kind of thing that riles up citizens when they’re not made a part of the process, as shown by recent AI data center protests across the United States.
Still, when it comes to the ocean, its potential remains unlimited—even if, like Trump, your view of its potential is as a gas station, mining site, place for floating power plants, and, of course, a garbage dump full of sharks out to get you.