Greentech series: Will merchant ships be powered by nuclear power in the future?

Düsseldorf. For decades they were considered an exotic footnote in the history of technology: nuclear-powered merchant ships. The US “Savannah”, the German ore carrier “Otto Hahn” and the Japanese “Mutsu”, which were launched in the 1960s, were intended to prove that nuclear propulsion could be technically controlled in commercial traffic. That succeeded. But economically the projects were a disaster; they were far too expensive.