The ports of Long Beach and Corpus Christi in the United States are examining the feasibility of introducing nuclear power through small modular reactors (SMRs), with the issue taking centre stage during a discussion on the opening day of the annual American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) convention in New Orleans.
The panel, moderated by MARAD’s senior executive Captain Stephen Carmel, brought together port leaders from energy hub Corpus Christi and container giant Long Beach, as well as technology developers Core Power and Blue Core, which are working with the respective ports.
Both ports are collaborating with MARAD, the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on an initiative assessing both the feasibility and the methodologies required to bring nuclear technology into US ports.
According to the US Department of Transportation, which oversees MARAD, testing the latest innovations in Small Modular Reactors could help revitalise US shipbuilding, reduce fuel costs and restore the country’s maritime dominance.
For Mikal Boe, a UK-based shipping veteran with decades of industry experience and the founder and CEO of Core Power, the need to rethink marine propulsion became clear roughly a decade ago.
“We had to find a new way to power our industry, not least because we had massive environmental regulations coming down the pike,” Boe said.
The cooperation between Corpus Christi and Core Power illustrates the type of partnership that may be required to move nuclear propulsion from a technological concept towards real-world commercial deployment.
Jeff Pollack, Director of Sustainability at the Port of Corpus Christi, said he became familiar with Core Power through the company’s involvement with the Port of Rotterdam.
That relationship has particular significance for Corpus Christi, given the strength of the trade link between the two ports. Pollack noted that 25% of cargoes leaving Corpus Christi are destined for Rotterdam, making the Dutch port its largest single trading partner.
The two ports are also reworking an existing Memorandum of Understanding around the goal of “conferring end-to-end value to a shared customer base”. While Pollack expressed some reservations about the broader “Green Corridor” concept, he argued that the bilateral relationship itself could offer a compelling framework for cooperation.
For Captain Carmel, however, nuclear propulsion could go far beyond simply providing another fuel option. He outlined a vision in which ports and the wider maritime sector would undergo a systemic transformation.
“Trade will change fundamentally, much more than the container revolution changed it…the real value proposition moves to speed, and everything changes as a result of that,” he said.
Higher operating speeds could shorten voyages and reduce the number of days vessels spend at sea. In that scenario, Carmel argued, traditional economies-of-scale calculations would also change, with speed becoming more important than vessel size.
“The economies of scale calculations are very different when scale is about speed- rather than size,” he said. This could mean moving the same amount of cargo with fewer ships, or using additional vessels to move even more cargo.
The implications could extend to the size of container ships themselves. After pointing to the savings associated with faster transportation when measured through inventory cost-of-carry calculations, Carmel suggested that vessel dimensions could eventually decrease.
“The size of ships will likely shrink,” he said, adding that the optimum size for container vessels could potentially fall to between 10,000 and 12,000 teu.
Boe likewise sees nuclear propulsion altering established assumptions about shipping economics and global trade patterns. His argument is built around a simple idea: with nuclear power, “Speed is free.”
Increasing the speed of LNG carriers, containerships, VLCCs and large bulkers, he argued, would fundamentally change the economics governing how shipping companies operate and structure their fleets.
Yet nuclear propulsion also introduces an entirely different regulatory and safety framework.
Beyond the question of vessel economics, Boe stressed the extensive regulation and exceptionally high safety standards associated with the nuclear industry. For commercial shipping, he argued, the challenge would not be to reduce those standards to fit existing maritime practices, but to raise maritime propulsion standards to the level already applied to naval nuclear vessels.
The US Navy’s long experience with nuclear-powered vessels provides a key reference point. Boe’s position is that commercial shipping cannot simply adapt nuclear technology to current industry standards.
“We cannot bring nuclear down to commercial shipping standards; we need to bring commercial shipping up to naval nuclear propulsion standards,” he said.
