A NEW nuclear “golden age” beckons, courtesy of a US-UK pact fast-tracking regulatory approvals and catalysing billions of dollars of private investment into land-based and maritime projects.

While the political agreement signed this week remains couched in aspirational language and the slew of investments announced to underline the size of the market opportunity are yet to see binding contracts signed, the deal has been hailed as a major breakthrough for nuclear maritime investment.

According to shipping’s rapidly growing pro-nuclear maritime lobby, the first floating nuclear maritime assets are now likely to hit the water as soon as 2030 with a rapid uptick in politically backed private investment to follow.

Those at the more enthusiastic end of the nuclear lobby, who remain undaunted by the long list of political, economic and regulatory barriers ahead, argue it will ultimately allow the US and UK to supercharge a new era of nuclear-powered shipping and challenge China’s shipbuilding hegemony.

After years on the periphery of the industry agenda, the civil maritime nuclear sector is beginning to sound like a mainstream contender.

“Eighteen months ago we would not be having this conversation, but now nuclear is a mainstream agenda item in maritime,” said Mark Tipping, Lloyd’s Register’s nuclear specialist and a board member of the Nuclear Energy Maritime Organisation.

The Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy, which was formally signed by UK prime minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump on Thursday, aims to accelerate the build-out of new nuclear power plants by allowing the UK and US regulatory bodies to accept parts of each other’s safety assessments.

In addition to reducing approval times for new designs like Small Modular Reactors, from up to four years to around two, the outlined commitments also promise to develop standards for a UK-US nuclear shipping corridor.

Amid a flurry of deals and projects unveiled this week to usher in the new agreement, DP World confirmed that it would be partnering with US-based company Last Energy to build a micro-nuclear power plant at its London Gateway port and logistics hub in the UK.

The project, which is slated to begin operations in 2030, is a subsidy-free private investment of £80m ($107m) from Last Energy and is intended to provide 20MW to the port’s ongoing £1bn expansion, with additional capacity exported to the grid.

And while the focus of the Atlantic Partnership deal is to accelerate new nuclear power stations, the knock-on consequences for accelerating the deployment of nuclear energy in the maritime sector will be significant, according to Mikal Bøe, chief executive of the nuclear maritime technology company Core Power.

“It sets the tone for how these two countries start collaborating on everything from technology to licensing and permitting. This is about entering maritime nuclear into the policy framework,” said Bøe.

“This agreement between two leading nuclear and maritime nations recognises the economic benefit of civil maritime nuclear and that 2025 is the year it begins to go mainstream.”

Nuclear investment, particularly in the SMRs with potential for maritime application, has been growing rapidly. Barclays predicts that between 2030 and 2050, net nuclear capacity outside China and Russia will probably increase by more than half, to over 450GW, with SMRs accounting for 40%-60% of the total. The latest International Energy Agency forecast predicts a rise in investment in SMRs from $5bn today to over $25bn in 2030, with cumulative investment of $670bn by 2050.

Excessive regulation and the risk of a public backlash should red tape be cut have traditionally been cited as barriers to those forecasts becoming reality, but a swing of significant policy support from the US and UK suggests that those concerns are starting to be addressed.

The memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday even contains specific reference to maritime as part of the agenda. The pact commits both countries to “exploring opportunities for novel applications of advanced nuclear energy, including civil maritime applications, and playing a leading role informing the establishment of international standards, potential establishment of a maritime shipping corridor between the participants’ territories, and strengthening energy resilience for the participants’ defence facilities”.

Right now the maritime industry's current regulatory framework for nuclear applications is fragmented and not fit for purpose, but there are multiple streams of work already underway.

The International Maritime Organization is revising its regulations for nuclear-powered ships under Solas chapter 8. The International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, has launched its Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea project, which aims to establish a framework for the safe and secure deployment of civil nuclear applications at sea.

On paper, that process will culminate in international mandatory agreements but the likelihood of international harmonisation of regulations, even in the mid-term, is widely seen as politically unlikely.

The more likely scenario is that bilateral political agreements like the US-UK pact will be required to catalyse commercial deals and set the groundwork for further harmonisation in the future.

“Underneath the surface of these bilateral agreements there are significant moves to create the conditions to accelerate nuclear for maritime,” said Bøe.

“There is a moment coming up, I would say probably later this year, where the joining of the dots happens. Where new nuclear policies and this latest political leadership seen in these bilateral agreements and maritime strategies, come together to start creating a unique competitive advantage that will ultimately challenge the hegemony of the Chinese shipping industry today. That’s where this is going,” he continued.

On a more practical basis, the development of a bilateral liability convention between a strong pair of “frontrunner” nations is more than just about confidence and statements. Unified regulatory clarity reduces uncertainty, enabling insurers to underwrite risk that they don’t currently understand.

“We can’t price that risk until we can define it,” said Mike Salthouse, head of external affairs at NorthStandard.

“At the moment nuclear is quite different to everything else because unlike a conventional ship it is highly likely that the engine reactor and the vessel will be financed separately, and then there’s the fuel and how we deal with the end of life after that. This is all new to us and the reinsurance sector, but it’s clear that nuclear technologies are now part of the future.”

The question of when that future arrives, however, remains an open question. Despite the new innovations and promise of SMR costs ultimately being attractive, the economics remain troublesome and the deliverables vague in terms of timelines. A US-UK bilateral offers hope from two nuclear front-runners, but excessive regulation remains a barrier for most and the social acceptance question means that government support and private investment remain conditional.

Maritime’s nuclear pioneers, however, remain undaunted and more bullish than ever.

“We will see the first deployed civil nuclear maritime assets by around 2032,” said Tipping, who believes that a rapid scaling from there is entirely realistic.

Mikal Bøe argues that might even be too conservative a timeline.

“This is public-private partnership, and the private side is ready to bring the technology, the finance and the solutions. The public side has to set the permitting conditions and the licensing which it is doing. It’s really a question of how quickly we can bring this to market on the back of a bureaucracy that is suddenly starting to realise that they need to move fast. 2032 is highly realistic, but I think it’s possible we may actually see the first nuclear assets coming out prior to 2030.”