[Offshore Energy/ February 6, 2024] South Korean shipbuilding major HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering (KSOE) has entered into a cooperation deal with prominent nuclear power companies Core Power and TerraPower to develop nuclear power for ships.

The move is being announced following a meeting on the joint construction of molten salt reactors recently held in Washington state, USA.

The building block of the project will be the development of the first-of-a-kind molten chloride fast reactor (MCFR) from Terra Power in the United States.

The goal is to commercialize the technology and fit it into ships by 2035.

The development of the first fast-spectrum molten salt reactor has reached a major milestone with the launching of pumped-salt operations in the Integrated Effects Test (IET) facility installed at TerraPower’s laboratory in Everett, Washington.

Project partners CORE POWER, Southern Company, and TerraPower see this as a major achievement, taking the project to bring TerraPower’s first-of-a-kind MCFR to market into an important new phase.

HD KSOE has already invested $30 million in the fourth-generation SMR company, TerraPower, and the duo now wants to extend their collaboration to exploring new business opportunities in the field of floating nuclear power plants.

KSOE plans to send a research team to TerraPower in March.

The shipbuilder has been working on several areas in the nuclear propulsion sector. In October 2023, KSOE and KEPCO Engineering and Construction Company (KEPCO E&C) received approval in principle (AiP) from classification society ABS for a new design of a floating offshore nuclear power barge.

The floating small modular reactor (SMR) barge is intended to serve as offshore power generation for remote communities and island electrification.