HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering (HD KSOE) has announced plans for a nuclear-powered container ship. For the past century container ships have increased in size constantly, and this SMR-powered design would weigh in at 15,000 TEUs, slightly smaller than the very biggest models deployed so far, and big enough to merit onboard nuclear. South Korea commissions a new nuclear reactor every few years, and continues to manufacture a large fraction of global shipping, so this combination project can be expected to reach fruition. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are widely touted as the future of nuclear energy in the West – dodging some of the West’s difficulties with nuclear by shrinking the scale, and thus lead time and investment cost,…