Posted on 07/11/2023 4:22:00 AM PDT by Fish Speaker
WASHINGTON — The Navy has published the final draft of its environmental impact statement assessing how it should go about dismantling the former aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVN-65), a process that will likely set decades-long precedents for future nuclear-powered ships.
Environmental impact statements, as the name implies, are lengthy documents that outline the dangers to the ecosystem that disposing of decades-old nuclear reactors can pose, as well as identify one of several courses of action with which the Navy prefers to move forward. Due to the numerous state and federal agencies that must weigh in, as well as considering the general public’s comments, the documents often take years to produce and finalize.
(Excerpt) Read more at breakingdefense.com ...
Replacements?
Have the bumbling idiots in our government thought that far ahead?
They’ve laid the keel for CVN-80 - USS Enterprise, a Ford-class Nuclear Aircraft Carrier.
Oh, wait......Oops, it sank. Suddenly. Oh, well, outta sight, outta mind.
USS Enterprise (CVN-65) —> USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78)
USS Nimitz (CVN-68) —> USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79)
They are already ahead of the game
USS Politician. Disgusting. And obsolete.
One recalls the Clinton era and so-called "peace dividend" which was one of the many delicious turkeys carved up to feed the politically well connected, as the US -- recall Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound" prediction -- out sourced to "offshore" shipyard and many other manufacturing jobs. Because, savings.... And dividends.... The consequences are now very visible. More than $32 trillion dollars visible, with DC still doing the carving of the next turkeys.
Its not like this is the first nuke to be scrapped. What happened to the Long Beach?
Bingo - “Navy” wants to find a way to use the ‘cost’ to gain some influence with the moneychangers in the temple (Congress).
Send them into the Taiwan strait, they get dismantled for free.
“...dismantling nuclear-powered carrier Enterprise”
Take that China!!! We’re not going to give your hypersonics any targets, we’ll just destroy them for you!!!
They had better trace whoever get for the “commercial option” all the way back and make sure that it’s not part of the Chinese military. Plan on them to be the low bidder on such a project…
It’s hard for someone my age (and a veteran) to see the Enterprise (CVN-65) go away....*SIGH*
How many non-nuclear carriers has it scraped? Also a lot. Most of the 24 ship Essex class amongst others. Not to mention scrapping many other fairly large ships. Another routine process. Now we've let our shipyard capacity slip and the size factor of the BigE and her nuclear successors limits where their scrapping can occur. Possibly to different sites than had nuclear sub scrapping experience. But we don't have to invent new tech or methods. Just apply old ones to new circumstances. BigE IIRC has multiple small nuclear reactors so some steps will get multiple reps. We may need to invest in more capacity to manage future needs.
Of course they want to do a commercial dismantling. They will give the job to a Chinese. company so the Chinese can learn how we. build them.
My grandson is a supervisor in a shop in The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, another reservist grandson-in-law that is halfway through his apprenticeship there and yet another grandson who is a supervisor in periscope repair facility at Naval Sub Base Bangor, who started at the PSNS before transferring to Bangor closer to his home.
They all have worked in the nuclear deactivation portion of the shipyard. They’ve been cutting up nuclear subs for decades at PSNS. They are very, very skilled at the process. In the past 30+ years we’ve seen 4 commercial shipyards close, sell their dry docks to the highest bidders and develop the waterfront facilities.
Lockheed, gone. Lorain, gone. Foss Maritime, gone. Todd Shipyard, gone. Vigor hanging on by a thread. Just where are the commercial shipyards the Navy intends to outsource this work to? Foreign countries? What about the highly skilled American career technicians who do this kind of dangerous work?
The only option I can see is using the power of eminent domain the Navy assumes the Port of LA, perhaps the Port of Seattle, these longshoremen and their communist union, ILWU, founded by a communist named Harry Bridges, are trying to screwup Americans with their strategic labor disruptions, and sell the land to a new concern that could do the work. Otherwise, the only other option I see is offshore, that’s not going to float.
I had a similar feeling when touring NYC and walking on the USS Intrepid (WW2 aircraft carrier). It was neat to do, but the whole time I was thinking how much better it would have been to walk on the WW2 Enterprise, which they said would have been too costly to repair to make a museum out of it.
20 battle stars. 71 enemy ships sunk and 192 ships damaged (including credit for assisting with other allied ships in sinking enemy ships)
Take them out to the middle of the Atlantic and sink them.
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