The nuclear ship propulsion conversation is heating up. It amazes me how many armchair quarterbacks make the assertive statement that the NS Savannah experience "proves" that commercial nuclear powered ships are a bad idea. I'd wager that none of those opinionated posters have actually done any investigation to find out WHY the NS Savannah was taken out of service after ONLY 9 years of service, 78 port visits, 450,000 nautical miles of travel, one core reshuffling with 4 elements replaced and zero core refuelings. She also needed to support a specialized support infrastructure all by herself, she was designed as a showboat hybrid that could berth and entertain about 60 dignitaries in reasonable comfort. She even had a swimming pool. She operated on LEU with enrichment less than 5%. She was taken out of service at a time when oil cost less than $3/barrel. Just 3 years later, the cost skyrocketed to $12/barrel. Within 10 years after she was taken out of service, it had risen as high as $40/barrel. What a colossal one of a kind failure, right? I believe she was a raging success and that lack of follow through was a matter of poor timing and happened through no fault of her own. @atomicnews and I visited NS Savannah together in 2014.