Jim Byrne—ANS member since 1979

October 24, 2024, 12:00PMANS News

Julie and Jim Byrne on their wedding day, May 22, 1976.

As I was finishing my studies at the University of Pittsburgh and about to graduate with a degree in civil engineering, I talked to a local navy recruiter about a position with the Seabees. He told me there were no Seabee billets, but that the navy had a nuclear power program that might interest me. When I said yes, it wasn’t long before I was whisked off to Washington, D.C., to interview with someone named Admiral Hyman Rickover. The one thing they told me was to stand up to “the kindly old gentleman.”

The day started with technical interviews and then I was ushered into the admiral’s office. I was a typical college student, and I spent my money on food and beer and not on haircuts. On seeing me, Admiral Rickover told me that I looked like a girl. After a bit of back-and-forth, he asked me a couple of other questions. His last comment to me was that I must know something and to get out of his office.

N.S. Savannah and the American Nuclear Society

September 12, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear NewsErhard W. Koehler and Anne Jennings
N.S. Savannah docked in Baltimore in May 2024. (Photo: MARAD)

The American Nuclear Society was formed in 1954 in the wake of President Eisenhower’s seminal Atoms for Peace speech. Around the same time that Congress was debating the Atomic Energy Act and John Landis was helping establish ANS, the National Security Council began deliberating about adding a nuclear-­powered merchant ship to the nascent Atoms for Peace program. We like to imagine that the idea germinated after Mamie Eisenhower christened the U.S.S. Nautilus, but the truth seems much drier. Regardless, Ike championed the project and announced it to a surprised crowd in an April 1955 speech in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Landis would become the principal architect of the ship’s nuclear power plant. Although Savannah’s reactor now rests in the low-level radwaste repository in Clive, Utah, the ship’s prospects are as bright as the future of ANS itself.

NRC to discuss decommissioning of historic NS Savannah

April 16, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
The NS Savannah. (Photo: NS Savannah Association)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting on May 8 to discuss the license termination process for the retired nuclear-powered merchant ship, the NS Savannah. During the meeting, NRC staff will discuss the license termination process and receive public comments on the remaining cleanup activities described in the license termination plan for the historic ship, which may see a second life as a floating museum.

MARAD decommissioning Savannah : What’s next?

February 16, 2024, 9:30AMANS Nuclear Cafe
The N.S. Savannah. (Photo: N.S. Savannah Association)

What will happen to the retired nuclear-powered merchant ship, the N.S. Savannah? The Maritime Administration (MARAD) of the Department of Transportation is investigating possibilities for the vessel’s future, whether it be in disposition, transportation, or preservation.

ABS to study nuclear for commercial maritime applications

August 19, 2022, 9:30AMNuclear News
The NS Savannah—the first merchant ship powered by a nuclear reactor.

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has announced the launch of a research project that will look into barriers to the adoption of advanced nuclear propulsion for commercial vessels.

The $794,000 project, awarded to ABS last year by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, is now being formally contracted through the DOE’s U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development funding opportunity, according to ABS’s August 17 announcement. Support is to be provided by Idaho National Laboratory’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC).

EnergySolutions and RSCS team up to decommission NS Savannah

March 31, 2022, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
NS Savannah at Pier 13 in Baltimore, Md., in 2012.

Utah-based EnergySolutions is joining Radiation Safety and Control Services (RSCS) in the decommissioning of NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered merchant ship, currently berthed at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland. EnergySolutions announced on March 29 that a joint venture of the two companies, Nuclear Ship Support Services, is conducting the final phases of decommissioning the ship’s reactor, which was defueled in 1975 but remains in place.

The history and future of civilian nuclear power afloat

December 10, 2021, 2:35PMNuclear NewsGail H. Marcus and Steven M. Mirsky

In the early days of the development of nuclear power, a broad range of nuclear technologies and applications were explored. Among these developments were the use of nuclear propulsion for ships, both military and civilian, as well as a floating nuclear power plant. While the use of nuclear power for naval vessels, including submarines and surface ships, continued, most of the civilian uses of nuclear power on the water were ultimately terminated.

Recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in both floating nuclear power plants and the use of nuclear propulsion in the civilian sector. The renewed interest makes this a particularly timely moment to recount the initial developments in this area. Some of the early civilian nuclear vessels were discussed in two sessions during the June 2021 ANS Annual Meeting, “NS Savannah History” and “History of Non-­Naval Nuclear Ship Power.” This article draws on the presentations from those sessions, the second of which was cochaired by the authors, as well as on other studies of the history of nuclear power.

Past, Present, and Promise 3: Return to the NS Savannah

December 5, 2013, 7:00AMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

Previous articles in this series were published on November 8 and November 14; this is the third and final installment of the series, which concludes just prior to the 60th anniversary of President Eisenhower's famous "Atoms for Peace" speech.  That speech, whose official title was "Atomic Power for Peace," was delivered to the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 8, 1953 and its ramifications for the future of civil nuclear energy the world over were immense.

Past, Present and Promise 2: The N.S. Savannah… Then

November 14, 2013, 7:00AMANS Nuclear Cafe

savannah 240x160

NS Savannah

An odd sidelight of my years in the Navy as a Reactor Operator was the time that we were called upon to perform work on the preserved ships at Patriot's Point Naval Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.  This interlude allowed me to become intimately familiar with a ship that was totally out of place at that anchorage of the aged: the nuclear powered commercial ship N.S. Savannah.

Nuclear power at sea

December 7, 2010, 7:00AMANS Nuclear CafeRod Adams

On Sunday, December 5, 2010, the Financial Times reported on a story (subscription required) that has been available in nuclear-energy focused corners of the Web for about three weeks: A consortium worthy of serious attention has begun a study of the viability of nuclear propulsion for oil tankers. The three-member consortium includes Lloyd's RegisterBMT Nigel Gee, and Hyperion Power Generation. Enterprises Shipping and Trading, a Greek company that manages a large fleet of modern, double hull tankers, is funding the study.