Image: Sunrise over Felixstowe UK container port
Recent work released by the MIT Maritime Consortium analyzes policy and governance challenges and offers a path forward for nuclear-powered commercial vessels moving routinely between US and UK ports.
Last September, the United States and the United Kingdom took a major step toward transforming the future of maritime transport, announcing deeper cooperation on advanced nuclear propulsion and setting the stage for what could become the world’s first civil nuclear shipping corridor. A new 2025 US–UK Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signals a renewed commitment from both governments to explore how next-generation reactors could power commercial vessels across the North Atlantic—an idea long discussed but never implemented at scale.
While the MoU emphasizes technical collaboration on advanced reactor technologies, there are legal, regulatory, and governance challenges that would need to evolve before nuclear-powered commercial vessels could move routinely between US and UK ports. A new report released by the MIT Maritime Consortium aims to analyze port, regulatory, and infrastructural issues and gaps within this space and provide a concrete path forward for technology policy solutions supporting systems safety.
Historic Precedent, Modern Challenges
Civil nuclear propulsion is not entirely without precedent. The United States’ N.S. Savannah and Germany’s N.S. Otto Hahn operated during the mid-20th century, offering early demonstrations of the technology’s potential and limitations. But the regulatory and legal frameworks that governed those ships are now decades out of date.
“Technology has advanced significantly, but the policy environment has not kept pace,” says Anthony Valiaveedu, Technology and Policy Program (TPP) student and lead-author of the new report. “The MoU creates momentum, but delivering a functioning corridor will require solving problems that the Savannah and Otto Hahn era never fully addressed. The recently published report aims to identify these gaps and proposes solutions”.
Liability: The Most Complex Piece of the Puzzle
Nuclear liability—who pays and how in the event of a nuclear incident—remains one of the thorniest challenges. Existing maritime liability mechanisms draw heavily from the US Price–Anderson Act, which caps operator liability and establishes federal indemnification. A similar approach is likely to underpin any future US–UK nuclear shipping corridor.
“Under such a system, the ‘flag state,’ or the country where the vessel is registered, would assume primary responsibility for financial indemnity,” says Professor Fotini Christia, Director of IDSS and co-director of the MIT Maritime Consortium. “This reduces risks for commercial operators but requires new international agreements on claims processing, compensation mechanisms, and cross-border insurance coverage.” Understanding the limits of maritime liability limits compared to claims due to radiological effects will be crucial in developing an indemnity agreement for nuclear ships. There have existed prior agreements outlining nuclear liability, but it will be largely up to the flag state to insure the potential consequences.
Regulatory Gaps and Licensing Hurdles
Licensing nuclear ships spans multiple agencies and legal regimes—and currently, critical gaps exist on both sides of the Atlantic. While the UK’s gaps are largely coordination based, the US lacks clear regulatory guidance in outlining how such licensing activity will be taken.
Complicating matters further, longstanding US restrictions on foreign reactor ownership could hamper collaborative vessel development, while inspection protocols would need alignment across both nations’ maritime and nuclear regulatory bodies. The MoU, although providing political momentum and a starting point for discussion, does not yet define how licensing responsibilities would be divided or harmonized.
Ports Face Major Infrastructure Upgrades
Although nuclear ships can dock on any port, as seen with Savannah and Otto Hahn, any port designed for servicing nuclear-powered vessels would require enhanced infrastructure well beyond typical commercial standards. This includes:
- advanced radiation monitoring systems
- capabilities for onboard and shoreside decontamination
- waste handling and storage facilities
- heightened security equivalent to nuclear-grade protection
Ports near existing naval nuclear facilities—such as those supporting the US and UK submarine fleets—could offer natural advantages due to their established emergency planning and oversight capabilities. Emergency preparedness will also require designating offshore anchorage points, evacuation routes, and clear population-risk assessments tailored specifically to shipboard reactor incidents. These ship design considerations have been deeply outlined in the previously released Nuclear Ship Safety Handbook.
International Risks and Regional Sensitivities
Beyond the US and UK, potential shipping routes pass near countries with varying levels of acceptance of civil nuclear activity, including Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Ireland, and France. Their cooperation will be essential for defining permissible routes and coordinating emergency response frameworks.
Security considerations remain another concern. While the North Atlantic largely avoids major piracy hotspots, any future corridor expansion would confront unique risks—including gaps between nuclear liability protections and traditional maritime insurance, which does not cover piracy-related incidents. These risks may also translate to non-nuclear ports as well, due to the potential visits by nuclear ships.
Pathways Forward: Regulatory Innovation and Demonstration Projects
Authors suggest that progress will depend heavily on regulatory experimentation through established processes within the UK and US. Proposed solutions include:
- Regulatory “sandboxing”, through the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, to allow controlled testing of licensing approaches and improve efficiencies
- Flexible inspection frameworks using classification societies and advanced remote monitoring technologies
- Government-led demonstration projects, potentially operated through national laboratories, to build real-world experience and establish modern precedent through the US Maritime Administration and Department of Energy.
Such initiatives could help clarify agency roles, reduce uncertainty for industry partners, and accelerate timelines for commercial nuclear propulsion.
A Strategic Bet on the Future of Maritime Energy
At its core, the 2025 MoU reflects a shared strategic goal: building a next-generation maritime technology for energy systems capable of supporting a revive of ship building in the US, as well as achieving decarbonization targets, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and strengthening transatlantic cooperation on critical technologies.
Whether a nuclear shipping corridor can be realized will strongly depend on the intricate regulatory, legal, and international agreements that govern global maritime operations.
Still, both nations appear committed. As Professor Themis Sapsis, Director of the Center for Ocean Engineering and co-director of the MIT Maritime Consortium notes, “This isn’t just about ships—it’s about shaping the future rules of global maritime energy. If the US and UK can solve these challenges first, they can define the standards for everyone else.”
