This ship is a marvel, and showcases the truly impressive capabilities of modern shipbuilding industry. What isn’t mentioned, but is equally impressive, is the rate at which such shipyards can turn out new ships, and the surprisingly low cost. However, one can’t help but lament that this capability isn’t being used to produce ThorCon reactors, instead of draining resources for a quick profit. (Do have a look at the white paper, it provides fascinating perspective.)
This LNG ship extracts and condenses 3.6 million tonnes of natural gas per year, with an energy density of 55.5 MJ/kg, giving:
3.6e6 tonnes/year * 1e3 kg/tonne * 55.5 MJ/kg = 199.8e9 MJ/year
or 199.8e9 MJ/year * MWh/3600 MJ * TWh/1e6MWh = 55.5 TWh/year
This yearly energy content represents a continuous power output of:
199.8e9 MJ/year * GJ/1e3 MJ * year/(365.2425*24*3600)s = 6.33 GW
That is the equivalent of a few large power plants. In the scheme of global energy requirements though, it barely registers: world energy consumption in 2008 was 143,851 TWh.
Now, given the energy density of Uranium/Thorium at 80e6 MJ/kg, the energy contained within that 3.6 million tonnes of LNG could instead be derived from:
199.8e9 MJ/year * kg/80e6 MJ * tonne/1e3 kg = 2.5 tonnes (of U or Th)
That is a rather small number, but lets put it in terms of volume. With Uranium at 1.5e9 MJ/L, or Thorium at 9.3e8 MJ/L, that amounts to roughly the size of a yoga ball:
U: 199.8e9 MJ * L/1.5e9 MJ = 133L (sphere of radius 32cm)
Th: 199.8e9 MJ * L/9.3e8 MJ = 215L (sphere of radius 37cm)
The fun part happens when you scale it back up to the global energy consumption of 143,851 TWh, and it translates to a meager 6500 tonnes per year, capable of replacing the billions of tons of fossil fuels we consume today. Even with projected growth, global energy demands could still be satisfied by a single mine, to say nothing of the billions of tons of uranium available in seawater. Before that is necessary, the tens of thousands of tons of so-called “nuclear waste” can be consumed, as they still contain ~95% of the original energy content.