Quote:
Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic
No matter how big you can make a cargo carrying submarine you could always make a cargo ship bigger. The submarine simply cannot carry the volume that a normal ship can hence it is only useful for highly valuable items. This limits it's usefulness because the ratio between value of cargo to operational costs of the vessel needs to be balanced to even make the operation financially worthwhile.
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This brings up some interesting questions, such as how the running costs of a nuclear submarine might compare to a cargo vessel with similar capacity. I suspect that they are very expensive to run, but I'm not certain. Mainly because there are not any nuclear powered civilian cargo ships in operation to compare it to. Fuel oil must be a major expense in the running of a cargo vesel, so I wonder how much more or less expensive it is on a per nautical mile travelled basis to run a nuclear powered cargo vesel (submarine).
Something to ponder.