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US Navy Decommissions the First Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Navy has decommissioned the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The vessel launched in 1961 and is mainly known for playing a pivotal role in several major incidents and conflicts, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the 2003 Iraq War. However, it also served as the quintessential showcase for what nuclear ships could do. Its eight reactors let it run for years at a time, all the while making more room for the aircraft and their fuel. As you might guess, the decommissioning process (which started when the Enterprise went inactive in 2012) is considerably trickier than it would be for a conventional warship. It wasn't until December 2016 that crews finished extracting nuclear fuel, and the ship will have to be partly dismantled to remove the reactors. They'll be disposed of relatively safely at Hanford Site, home of the world's first plutonium reactor. Whatever you think of the tech, the ship leaves a long legacy on top of its military accomplishments. It proved the viability of nuclear aircraft carriers, leading the US to build the largest such fleet in the world. Also, this definitely isn't the last (real-world) ship to bear the Enterprise name -- the future CVN-80 will build on its predecessor with both more efficient reactors and systems designed for modern combat, where drones and stealth are as important as fighters and bombers. It won't be ready until 2027, but it should reflect many of the lessons learned over the outgoing Enterprise's 55 years of service.
Enterprise had 8 A2W reactors so there was a lot of cutting and fuel removal that had to take place. In contrast, the next Enterprise will have 2 propulsion reactors. It would be nice if they can turn he into a museum somewhere, much like was done with the Nautilus.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
For the curious, the US Navy has already decided on the next ship to be named the U.S.S. Enterprise. It will be the third Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier, scheduled to be laid down in 2018, launched in 2023, and commissioned in 2025. No word yet on whether it will be sent on a five-year mission afterwards.
:)
Personally, I wish they'd named the first ship of that class Enterprise, and let Ford be one of the latter ones, so it could be the "Enterprise Class." Ah well.
what army/navy/etc. would sink a nuclear ship in their own waters during war?
Given the opportunity, all of them.
If sunk, it could be a major issue in your region for generations to come.
Nine nuclear ships have sunk at sea. None of them resulted in significant radiation release. The reactors are designed to withstand sinking.
Looks like the Hanford site has had quite a few problems:
Hanford Nuclear Waste Cleanup Plant May Be Too Dangerous
https://www.scientificamerican...
Report finds serious defects at Hanford nuclear waste treatment plant
http://www.latimes.com/nation/...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
255 words is about 3x the attention span of the average Engadget reader, so actually for them it's a long-form essay.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Yeah, because the Navy wasn't going to continue building aircraft carriers after they proved invaluable in every armed conflict since World War II. Would you rather they continued to burn millions of gallons of oil to move the thing around and generate steam?
This ship proved that nuclear propulsion works, and is far better than diesel. And since the US Navy has had a grand total of zero nuclear reactor accidents in over 50 years of operating dozens of vessels, maybe this was a good thing. Chalk it up to Admiral Rickover's insistence that every officer serving on one of his nuclear ships needed proper training, and got it before taking the post.
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US Navy never had a reactor accident not only because of the training but also because of a quite different reactor construction, generally quite small reactors built from prohibitively expensive materials and ridiculously high fuel enrichment (nuclear submarines run on almost pure U-235).
Naval reactors are also refueled just once or twice in their (rather short) lifetime. Nuclear propulsion works, but it is so expensive that only a military organisation with basically limitless funding can afford it. Civilian nuclear propulsion won't ever happen, icebreakers are the only exception.
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