Exactly. Energy balance is shown in the paper here:

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA539765

Even then the machinery to produce the fuel would not be trivial. Believe it or don't, even on the mighty Vinson, packaging this fuel factory is no mean feat.

This is the Navy at work, creating another incredibly expensive target for relatively cheap missiles to destroy.

@Engineer-Poet, this is true but $3-6/gal is nearly an order of magnitude cheaper than current fuel costs. Further, being able to produce your own fuel at multiple mobile forward points of operations has tremendous value. This seems like a no-brainer decision to me for the military... which is why they'll probably drag their heels, lol.

@Davemart: I have a friend at Burns and Roe who has told me that the USN's capital costs for nuclear power are in the $1,000-1,500/kw range so that certainly doesn't seem out of line. No interest payments to make and no regulatory bodies to stop them.

Are you aware of the fortune we paid to ship Persian Gulf petroleum products to Afghanistan, thanks largely to the mafia-like bottleneck of Pakistan? And the runup in gasoline prices this caused? How Iraqi petroleum failed to come online to sustain Operation Desert Freedom, and the continued dependence we had on Gulf petroleum? On the other hand, our nuclear carriers are remarkably long-lived and now at least can deliver an ancillary return on capital (aviation fuel) which nuclear warheads cannot, unless you count the loss-inducing reprocessing of HEU and plutonium.

I'd say the mere act of determination in war counts as much as warmaking itself. Even Sheik Yahmani of OPEC quaked that alternative energy would put Big Oil out of business. Far from true, but it did put the fear of Allah in certain adversaries.

@E-P,
I had no doubt that SMR can be cost effective and safe, and would be ideal as baseload electricity provider for the grid to replace coal.

However, despite the cost-effectiveness and relative safety of SMR as demonstrated in the USN fleet, no commercial shipping vessel has adopted this energy source for propulsion, due to liability risk? or due to anti-nuclear-prohibiting regulations?

Perhaps with modern computers, advanced sensors and monitoring system and networking, and better fail-safe design, these type of SMR will be able to replace all coal-fired power plants in existence with the same safety records and cost-effectiveness as the USN nuclear powered fleet.

GreenPlease,
The companies who are building Navy SMR can also supply the commercial shipping fleet using already proven design(s), or to re-power existing coal-fired power plants, if such a market exists.
Those ex-Navy-trained nuclear engineer /technicians can find a second career aboard commercial vessels or to work in re-powered existing coal-fired plants, if such a job exist.

Let's not forget that the $1,250/kW for a Navy SMR does not include the much larger decommissioning costs later at the end of the life of the reactor, perhaps many folds higher per kW, because almost everything in it is radioactive and must be disposed of properly to keep the workers and the environment safe...including the nuclear waste. It takes a loooong time to decommission a nuclear power plant!
On the contrary, solar and wind energy collectors contain no radioactivity and the materials can be recycled upon decommissioning, thus negating any associated tear-down costs.

The actual cost of Naval Nuclear Propulsion is not easily compared to that of equipment used for utility power.

First of all, when the Navy expresses reactor output, they do so in terms of Mw(thermal). With only a couple of exceptions (the Tullibee and Lipscomb are the only ones I know), most of the energy produced by a naval reactor is used to drive steam turbines that connect mechanically to the propulsion shaft(s). Therefore, the 220Mw output of the S6W submarine reactor refers to the gross thermal energy output -- to translate that to a typical land-based reactor electrical output you would multiply by 0.3 or so. So the $1200/kw in this conversation goes to about $3500/kw on an apples-to-apples basis.

Moreover, I'm almost certain the $x/kw "capital cost" does not include the core itself. I'd bet my next quarter's billings that is separately costed as an element of the DoE budget authority. Naval reactor cores are wildly different from their civilian counterparts, with fuel configured not in separate rods but in a single unified structure of plates in a quite unique arrangement. Enrichment is stunningly high: over 90% compared to 2-3% in a civilian core. No, they cannot become "bombs" because of dispersion and configuration of fuel and cladding, but they are far more expensive than the already eye-wateringly high cost of civilian fuel.

But the biggest reason you will not see a US Navy unit in ANY civilian application is the very different approach to operation and safety. Navy reactors have very few automated shutdown protections. Instead they are dependent on (1) an extremely robust negative temperature coefficient of reactivity throughout the range of power output in all phases of core life, (2) an inviolable and conservative safe operating envelope with significant structural and thermal margins, (3) zero tolerance for fission product daughters in the primary coolant loop under ANY conditions, and (4) a very highly trained operating team. They do not possess the exceptional strength of containment we expect from utility reactors (owing quite obviously to mass and volumetric limitations of the warship itself). They must also be able to very quickly recover from inadvertent shutdowns in order to maintain vessel propulsion in combat conditions (translation: fast recovery startup rates that would make a utility operator soil his trousers). THIS IS NOT TO SAY THEY ARE "UNSAFE" IN ANY WAY, but they simply are not the same thing as, say, an AP1000.

Finally, as many mentioned here, the overall lifetime support (including essentially limitless years of safe storage of decommissioned waste materials) is in no way included in the "sticker price".

The Hyperion E-P mentioned fits that description; http://phys.org/news145561984.html
but I sure there must be others.

What appeals to me about SMRs is that they are small. The utilities are talking about facing a death spiral and building big power plants of any kind just runs the risk of emplacing another future stranded asset. Better to build lots of small power: Small, fast, flexible, distributed, and smart.

One issue of concern for nuclear powered container ships could be piracy.

Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$13 to $16 billion per year), particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year. In recent years, shipping companies claimed that their vessels suffer from regular pirate attacks on the Serbian and Romanian stretches of the international Danube river, i.e. inside the European Union's territory, starting from at least 2011.

Modern pirates favor small boats and taking advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels. They also use large vessels to supply the smaller attack/boarding vessels. Modern pirates can be successful because a large amount of international commerce occurs via shipping. Major shipping routes take cargo ships through narrow bodies of water such as the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca making them vulnerable to be overtaken and boarded by small motorboats. Other active areas include the South China Sea and the Niger Delta. As usage increases, many of these ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control, making them prime targets for piracy.

Roger: not to be picky but the Los Angeles class are Fast Attack Submarines (SSN-688 lead vessel), not destroyers.

@Herman:
Many thanks for the very knowledgeable insights.

Al:
With no worries about fuel consumption in nuclear vessels, ships, even massive container ships I would imagine providing the materials strengths are up to it, could simply plane.
No pirate is going to catch a ship moving at 35 knots or so!
If that it practical, they would be a heck of a sight at sea whizzing along! :-)