How do you dismantle a nuclear submarine?

BBC ^ | 30 March 2015 | Paul Marks

[McGruff]

Nuclear submarines have long been a favourite in popular fiction. From movies such as The Hunt for Red October to long-running TV series like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, they have always been portrayed as awesome instruments of geopolitical power gliding quietly through the gloomy deep on secret, serious missions.

But at the end of their useful lives the subs essentially become floating nuclear hazards, fizzing with lethal, spent nuclear fuel that's extremely hard to get out. Nuclear navies have had to go to extraordinary lengths to cope with their bloated and ageing Cold War fleets of hunter-killer and ballistic missile nuclear subs.

[McGruff]

Worth reading although depressing.

[Celtic Conservative]

If you’re the Russians you don’t. You just let them sink at dockside due to neglect.

CC

[AppyPappy]

Very carefully.

[W.]

[Doogle]

..give it to the French

[The_Media_never_lie]

placed in spent nuclear fuel casks and put on secure trains for disposal at a long-term waste storage and reprocessing plant.

Secure trains, yeah right!

[MNnice]

The fate of my old boat: "In 1982, the Patrick Henry was one of a number of submarines to have their ballistic missile tubes disabled – a concession made in talks with the Soviet Union in order to lessen the threat of nuclear war. She was reclassified as an attack submarine (SSN-599), and in her new role, she mainly conducted training exercises. The Patrick Henry was decommissioned in May 1984, and dismantled and disposed of at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as part of the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling was completed August 21, 1997."

[the_daug]

Good read. I remembered a story of the soviet era K19 on FR. I didn’t realize there are so many subs to decommission.

[Vaduz]

Park in on the Mexican coast line gone in 60 seconds.

[Doctor DNA]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/nuclear-catastrophe-looms-in-arctic/511150.html

Lots of future hot spots!

[Ditto]

You can convert them into a tourist attraction such we did with the first nuclear sub, the USS Nautilus

[The Great RJ]

Ironic that the environmentalist whackos have their panties in a twist over molecular level increases in benign CO2 while in Russia highly radioactive material is just being piled up.

[minnesota_bound]

Russian subs being dismantled. Photos here at google.
Some of their subs have sunk at dockside.
http://tinyurl.com/nvcqkw6

[minnesota_bound]

Dump subs
https://news.vice.com/article/the-soviet-union-dumped-a-bunch-of-nuclear-submarines-reactors-and-containers-into-the-ocean

[rottndog]

After defueling, US Navy Submarine reactor compartments, including the reactor vessel and all components in the reactor compartment of the submarine, is cut out of the hull in one piece, welded shut, and sent here for permanent disposal in a lined pit in Washington:



The rest of the boat is then mercilessly butchered down to the last shred of steel and recycled.

[MNnice]

When people ask me whatever happened to my old boat I tell them they probably shaved with it this morning.

[rottndog]

**sigh**