EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: You're listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
REGINA BARBER, HOST:
SHORT WAVErs, I'm here with science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel, and today, he's going to take us on a boat.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Not just any boat, Gina. I recently had an opportunity to spend some quality time on the world's first and only nuclear-powered passenger ship...
BARBER: Yes.
BRUMFIEL: ...The NS Savannah.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: For this is a very special ship - the first one of her kind, the only one of her kind today.
BRUMFIEL: That's from the Savannah sea trials in the early 1960s. It turns out she was the only one of her kind, period, because they never built another one...
BARBER: Oh.
BRUMFIEL: ...And we'll get into why that was later. Also, she hasn't sailed under nuclear power since the early 1970s. But the NS Savannah is still here in the port of Baltimore.
BARBER: Oh, my gosh. I totally want to go.
BRUMFIEL: You totally should. It's docked behind stacks of shipping containers. I made the trip to see this ship because it is a fascinating window into a period when the atom was the future and anything seemed possible.
BARBER: Today on the show, we're going to talk about the time the U.S. government built a nuclear-powered ship for civilians - why they did it, how it worked...
BRUMFIEL: And what it can tell us about nuclear power today.
BARBER: I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to SHORT WAVE, the science podcast from NPR.
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BARBER: So, Geoff, first of all, how did you learn about this ship?
BRUMFIEL: Honestly, I think I saw it on this nerdy YouTube channel a year or two ago that I like to watch, and I was instantly just totally taken with it. And then one day, I got the idea to actually get in touch with the agency that owns it - the U.S. Department of Transportation's maritime authority - and they told me that the next weekend was actually National Maritime Day, and the boat would be open to the public. So I gathered up my family...
All right, kids, who's ready to go see a nuclear-powered cruise ship?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Cheering).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (Cheering).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: (Cheering).
BRUMFIEL: ...Including my very reluctant wife...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I mean, I think it just might be a bit boring. I don't know.
BARBER: (Laughter).
BRUMFIEL: ...And off we went.
BARBER: OK. So, Geoff, I'm going to be honest. I had no idea this ship even existed. Tell me more about what motivated the government to even build it.
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it all goes back to the early 1950s, the beginning of the Cold War.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: This is the first full-scale test of a hydrogen device.
BRUMFIEL: The U.S. had just developed a new, powerful kind of nuclear weapon - a thermonuclear weapon.
BARBER: This kind of weapon uses nuclear fusion, like what powers the sun to make enormous explosions far greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
BRUMFIEL: That's it. That's it. So they tested their first device out in the Pacific.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Two, one.
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BRUMFIEL: It was terrible - so powerful, it completely vaporized the island that the military set it up on.
BARBER: Oh, wow.
BRUMFIEL: And then within a year, the Russians tested a thermonuclear weapon of their own.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking Russian).
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BRUMFIEL: Now, the president at the time was Dwight D. Eisenhower.
ERHARD KOEHLER: Eisenhower was very well attuned to the potential for good that nuclear technology could do for humankind.
BRUMFIEL: That's Erhard Koehler, the senior technical adviser for Savannah with the Department of Transportation.
KOEHLER: But he was stuck in a - in an arms race with the Soviet Union.
BRUMFIEL: So Eisenhower decided to switch up the tone. He went to the United Nations and he delivered this speech.
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PRESIDENT DWIGHT D EISENHOWER: If, at one time, the United States possessed what might have been called a monopoly of atomic power, that monopoly ceased to exist several years ago. Therefore...
BRUMFIEL: This became known as the Atoms for Peace speech. In it, Eisenhower laid out a number of different ways that the newly discovered power of the atom could be used for good.
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EISENHOWER: To apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine and other peaceful activities. A special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world.
BARBER: So in this speech, did they actually mention building a nuclear-powered passenger ship?
BRUMFIEL: No, no. Sadly...
BARBER: Oh, no.
BRUMFIEL: ...They didn't get there. The speech just sort of set the tone. The idea for the ship came later.
KOEHLER: This is before the jet age. Passenger ships were still the way that people got around the world. Merchant ships were still the way that so much of world trade flowed. So merchant ships were things that bound the world together, and Ike knew this.
BRUMFIEL: So he knew that a nuclear-powered merchant ship - passenger ship - would really make a statement. Construction on Savannah began in 1955. Its reactor turned on in 1961. And to be clear, this was always a demonstration ship. It could carry just 60 passengers.
BARBER: So we're talking, like, a smallish river cruise.
BRUMFIEL: I guess, if you enjoy a river cruise.
BARBER: I would - one day, one day.
BRUMFIEL: It also had cargo holds. The point was to show that nuclear power could be used on the open seas for all kinds of commercial ventures.
BARBER: OK, so let's fast-forward to today. So how is this ship doing?
BRUMFIEL: Well, that's the really cool thing. Savannah's interior is a time capsule from when it was completed in 1959. It's all this mid-century modern furniture, lots of teals and golds and oranges.
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BRUMFIEL: In the passenger lounge, they have a bar. And I'm pretty sure that makes this the only nuclear reactor ever built with its own bar.
BARBER: It sounds very "James Bond." But let's talk about the reactor.
BRUMFIEL: Yes, let's get down to the reactor. So it's in the forward section of the ship. You have to go way below deck.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Hang on to the handrails. Watch your footing, OK?
BRUMFIEL: The reactor was actually removed just last year...
BARBER: Wow.
BRUMFIEL: ...But you could still see the compartment that held it. Radiation safety officer Scott Gintner (ph) showed us around.
SCOTT GINTER: So inside here, you'll see the remnants of the 74-megawatt reactor. The whole purpose of this power plant was to take atoms, split them in half. And when you split an atom in half, you get two things - you get radiation and you get heat.
BRUMFIEL: And by the way, my son, at least, was really getting into this tour.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: You said something about that being, like, a neutron shield or whatever...
GINTER: Yep.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: ...It's called.
GINTER: Neutron shield tank.
BARBER: So proud.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: What does that exactly mean or do?
GINTER: Oh, now we're going to get technical.
BARBER: Did he answer?
BRUMFIEL: Oh, he answered.
BARBER: OK.
BRUMFIEL: You don't want to know what came after now we're going to get technical.
BARBER: OK. I love your son's questions. And actually, let's get a little technical for a minute. Powering the ship. This all works because of Einstein's famous equation - E=MC squared. E is energy. M is mass. C is the speed of light, which is a really big number. So basically, when an atom splits, a little bit of its mass turns into an enormous amount of energy.
BRUMFIEL: Right. I mean - and this is really mind-blowing - a cube of uranium a little bigger than a Rubik's Cube could send the Savannah around the world more than a dozen times. It's the equivalent of burning 28 million gallons of fuel.
BARBER: I mean, that is just incredible.
BRUMFIEL: Yeah. Yeah.
BARBER: I can understand why Eisenhower wanted to show the world what nuclear power could do. So, I mean, what happened to the Savannah?
BRUMFIEL: Well, it did sail around the world, and Erhard Koehler says it carried quite a few passengers.
KOEHLER: Anybody could buy a ticket, and the ship was very popular. It was - every berth was booked. It was never empty.
BARBER: I would have totally bought a ticket.
BRUMFIEL: Me, too.
(LAUGHTER)
BRUMFIEL: But unfortunately, the window was pretty small.
BARBER: Right.
BRUMFIEL: It only carried passengers from 1962 to 1965, so I think we...
BARBER: And we weren't alive.
BRUMFIEL: Yes, I think we both missed our chance by more than a decade.
BARBER: OK, so I'm a little disappointed. Why did it stop?
BRUMFIEL: Unfortunately, it came down to money.
KOEHLER: Because you had to have so many stewards in the crew to serve the passengers, if we stopped carrying passengers, you could reduce the stewards and reduce the cost of the program.
BRUMFIEL: The Savannah never made money. That's partially because it was this demonstration, half cargo carrier, half passenger vessel. It didn't do either job very well.
BARBER: But, you know, Geoff, shipping today is almost as dirty as it was in 1959. It uses this really gross, heavy fuel oil, it causes respiratory illnesses, contributes to 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Shipping companies are pledging to go green, so it's hard not to ask this question from the story, could they go nuclear?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it did cross my mind, as well. But the truth is, probably civilian ships will not go nuclear. And there are a couple of reasons why. First is public resistance. Even back in the day, Savannah was denied entry to several countries - Australia, Japan and New Zealand all shut the ship out. And that was before Chernobyl and Fukushima and the nuclear plant under siege in Ukraine. You can imagine how tough it would be right now to get a nuclear-powered cruise ship into a port. The local governments would want to inspect it from top to bottom. There'd be all sorts of restrictions. But, you know, there's also technical reasons why this can't work.
BARBER: I could imagine, like, refueling the ships would cost a fortune and they'd be dealing with their spent nuclear fuel. Where is that going to go?
BRUMFIEL: Exactly. Exactly. You need specialized facilities, places to store the radioactive waste, stuff like that. And there's one other thing that they didn't know about back then that we know now.
BARBER: What's that?
BRUMFIEL: Well, decommissioning. Shutting down a nuclear system and taking it apart is slow and painful and expensive. The Savannah's reactor only came out last year. Given that...
BARBER: Right.
BRUMFIEL: ...Ships don't last, you know, 50, 60 years, putting a nuclear reactor in a cargo ship - it just doesn't really make sense.
BARBER: So the Savannah was ultimately kind of a failure?
BRUMFIEL: Well, that's debatable. I mean, over...
BARBER: OK.
BRUMFIEL: ...A million people did visit the ship in its decade of operation. And...
BARBER: OK.
BRUMFIEL: ...Erhard says that's a big part of why the Savannah was built in the first place.
KOEHLER: The primary reason was to demonstrate the peaceful uses of the technology as a counterpoint to the military uses of the technology to kind of take the edge off the Cold War.
BRUMFIEL: And, you know, taking a step back, other technologies promoted by Atoms For Peace - Eisenhower's program - they did succeed. Nuclear medicine is the big one. We use...
BARBER: Right.
BRUMFIEL: ...It for all kinds of, you know, cancer treatments and medical imaging today. And there's also uses in agriculture - sterilizing food, for example. And while nuclear ships aren't a thing, nuclear power, even with all its problems, may be needed to someday stop climate change. I think the jury is still out on that one, but it's undeniable it can produce a lot of juice without making any CO2.
BARBER: Right. Well, Geoff, thank you so much for taking us on this trip on the NS Savannah.
BRUMFIEL: Oh, it was fun. Thank you.
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BARBER: This episode was produced by Berly McCoy and edited by Amina Khan and our managing producer, Rebecca Ramirez. Geoff was responsible for the facts. Beth Donovan is our senior director of programming, and Anya Grundmann is our senior vice president of programming. I'm Regina Barber.
BRUMFIEL: And I'm Geoff Brumfiel.
BARBER: Thank you for listening to SHORT WAVE from NPR.
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BARBER: By the way, after the trip, what did your wife think? Did she change her mind?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, she liked it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah, it was fun.
BRUMFIEL: But, I mean, look, I took her to a decommissioned nuclear missile silo on our honeymoon, so she's kind of managed her expectations by now.
BARBER: Oh, no. Let's hope she gets to pick the next family trip.
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