Feadship Says It Will Explore Nuclear Power Options for Yachts

Nuclear-powered superyachts? While that seems more sci-fi than reality, Dutch superyacht builder Feadship has joined the Nuclear Energy Maritime Organization (NEMO), a consortium of companies “dedicated to advancing fair and effective regulations for the deployment, operation, and decommissioning of floating nuclear power.”

That verbiage sounds more like a lawyer or politician than one of the world’s leading shipyards. It also doesn’t mean that Feadship will be launching a first nuclear-powered vessel anytime soon. But it will be looking closely at the technology to reach the “carbon-neutral yachting” goal it first announced in 2020. The company first showed its hand with a 2010 concept called Relativity (opening image) that has a nuclear engine.

“Joining NEMO aligns with our vision to explore every credible pathway toward a sustainable future,” said Giedo Loeff, Feadship’s head of innovation and strategy in a statement. “Nuclear power may not be tomorrow’s solution for superyachts, but it could be part of the long-term horizon—and it is our responsibility to help shape that possibility in a safe and sustainable way.”

The company has been on the bleeding edge of new propulsion technologies, having been the first leading shipyard to create a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system aboard Savannah in 2015, and last year’s Breakthrough, originally designed and built for Bill Gates before he sold the vessel. The 390-footer is the world’s first superyacht to be powered entirely by pure green hydrogen. (German competitor Lürssen, by the way, has kept apace in the innovative propulsion game with Cosmos, its recently launched methanol-powered superyacht. Italian builder Sanlorenzo has launched smaller yachts with methanol fuel cells that are no less important to the long-term development of alternative propulsion.)

Will Feadship be the first to have a nuclear, zero-emissions engine? Maybe. But to make it happen, it will need an owner with very deep pockets and the will to help push through maritime regulations for nuclear -powered yachts that do not currently exist.

“Nuclear energy offers the potential to be as transformational to shipping as the shift from wood to iron or from sail to steam,” Engel-Jan de Boer, global yacht segment director at Lloyd’s Register, said in a statement after the company released a 42-page report called Fuel for Thought: Nuclear for Yachts.  “Unlike alternative fuels that might serve as direct replacements for traditional oil-fired systems, nuclear power represents a fundamental shift that could redefine luxury yachting,” said de Boer, into “a new era where yachts are powered by the boundless energy of the atom.”

De Boer adopted a less “hoorah” attitude in an interview with Motor Boat & Yachting. The Lloyd’s report notes challenges such as creating robust safeguards and disposing of spent fuel, not to mention deciding on acceptable radiation dose limits for crew and operating in ecologically sensitive areas. “But those issues are not the biggest problems to be overcome,” de Boer told the magazine. “Public perception and politics are going to be the main obstacles. Will countries allow nuclear-powered yachts into their territorial waters, allow them to berth in their marinas, allow them to be serviced or refueled?”

The fears of a waterborne Three Mile Island reactor disfunction or the much larger radiation release following the explosion at Chernobyl happening in the next berth over are there, but the report argues they are largely unfounded.  

The nuclear fission propulsion proposed for yachts, now in their fourth generation, includes smaller, safer reactors that include different technologies—pressurized water reactors, heat pipe micro reactors, lead-cooled fast reactors, and high-temperature gas reactors—in different stages of development. Molten salt reactors, in particular, seem to offer the best potential for long-term, emission-free operations. Called small modular reactors (SMR) or “micro-reactors,” their compact footprint allows them to fit in the engine room of a 150-foot-plus superyacht.

The report also notes that owners commissioning yachts have already met with designers and shipyards to explore the possibilities. They fall into two groups—owners who would deploy nuclear-powered yachts with existing technologies as early as 2030, and those who would be willing to wait 20 years as more advanced technologies become available.

“It’s going to be very expensive and would need an owner like maybe, say, a friend of Elon Musk who believes in this technology,” says Vincenzo Poerio, CEO of Tankoa Yachts. “It’s feasible—nuclear submarines have been using it for decades—but it will involve a lot of safety procedures and protection for the crew to be taken into account. The industry would have to find a real expert in nuclear to make it happen.”  

The amount of energy generated by even a small reactor would require a “very big boat,” says Poerio, over 350 feet that can handle that much power since it needs to be expended rather than stored like diesel fuel.

“If we spent this much energy trying to keep nuclear secrets from Iran, why would we give it to a private yacht owner?” wonders Greg Marshall, whose Vancouver design firm stays on the leading edge of new superyacht technologies. “I think it will stay with the military.”

Thorium-based molten salt reactors, argues Marshall, could be the first on a superyacht. Their benefits include high fuel abundance, reduced long-lived waste, improved safety features and a lower risk of nuclear weapon proliferation over conventional uranium reactors. “The thorium isotope degrades in a similar way but is much less radioactive,” he says. “The units being tested are only 3 x 3 x 3 feet, so from a scale standpoint that’s plausible on a yacht. I could see it being the first technology to emerge.”

But Marshall believes that, given the zero-emissions potential for nuclear, it’s inevitable that leading shipyards will experiment with that technology.

“The potential benefits of extended range, high power output, environmental sustainability, and technological prestige make nuclear-powered yachts an intriguing and possibly transformative prospect,” concluded the Lloyds report. “The maritime industry may very well enter a new era where yachts are powered by the boundless energy of the atom.”