A federal agency wants to learn how nuclear reactors could help the US expand its commercial presence on the high seas.

The Department of Transportation’s maritime agency is seeking input on small modular reactors, a technology that global competitors are developing for “shipyards, ports, insurance regimes, and logistics networks, which places the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage in the absence of domestic SMR development,” according to a notice Wednesday.

The reactors have roughly one-third the power capacity of traditional nuclear power plants, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, making their size and prefabrication easier to deploy.

The announcement …