Description of venture idea
Chimera Marine is developing a fusion/fission hybrid for cargo ships.
Market needs this venture would address
Decarbonizing maritime shipping
Technical capabilities this venture might leverage
Fusion-fission hybrid with magnetic mirror and fast reactor blanket
Business model
“Propulsion as a service” - full service for ship owner/operators like Maersk.
Team
Jacob van de Lindt and Nelson van de Lindt
Outstanding risks
- Regulation
- Waste or safety is no better than a fission system, so might as well just do a fast fission reactor
- Plasma heating for the mirror is nontrivial
- Accident scenarios and public acceptance. Key failure modes:
- loss of coolant scenario
- prompt supercritical, e.g. system gets flooded with water that replaces the liquid Pb
- the ship sinks, with resulting tritium and radioactive material leakage