CORE POWER, Maersk, LR and the Port of Rotterdam publish study on port calls for nuclear ships

A joint development consortium including CORE POWER, Maersk, LR and the Port of Rotterdam published a seminal White Paper examining the safety and regulatory considerations associated with a nuclear-powered feeder ship calling at a major EU port.

The study used a defined port scenario to structure assessments as a baseline for how the findings, conclusions and recommendations can apply to any EU port when admitting a commercial nuclear-powered ship.

The work is meant to support a wider community of ports, regulators, shipowners, technology developers in understanding the steps required to move nuclear ship port calls from conceptual acceptance to operational readiness. The study demonstrates that the principal barriers to nuclear ship port calls are not technical, but relate instead to local and international regulatory alignment, governance, risk management integration and public acceptance.

Mikal Bøe, CEO of CORE POWER says: “An obvious key to the success of civil maritime nuclear propulsion is the trusted confidence of port cities and their populations in ship calls by nuclear powered merchant ships. Together with Rotterdam, LR and Maersk we've identified a port safety framework and created a credible starting point for assessments by the IMO as it revises the Safety Code for Nuclear Ships and for the IAEA as it launches its flagship ATLAS program this summer. We've highlighted where further work is needed, including modernized port guidance, inter agency regulatory alignment, nuclear-specific safety, and security requirements and best in class emergency preparedness to build public trust."

These barriers can be addressed using risk-based port safety frameworks already familiar to EU ports, provided that nuclear-specific considerations are systematically incorporated and supported by appropriate national and international guidance.

Bøe concludes: "Public trust and confidence is fundamental if we're going to transform the future civil shipping sector. Greenhouse gas emissions from the existing shipping fleet have become unsustainable and have led to the slowest sailing times in we've seen in decades. Now is the time to start the important work of evaluating nuclear shipping in a modern context and this report does exactly that”.