Estimated Cost At Completion: Fill & Download for Free

The Navy can't figure out how to dispose of the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) which has been defueled and stripped of most useable and traditional fittings. The cost to completely scrap a nuclear carrier has been estimated to be in excess of a third of its acquisition costs....The cost to turn a nuclear powered Carrier into a museum would be astronomical.Once they start decommissioning Nimitz Class Carriers, hopefully they will have a plan in place to perhaps save a few hulls.The problem is the Nuclear reactors having to be removed and this requires cutting the bowels out of the ship making her unseaworthy.Much of the work being carried out now is highly classified and little is known about the processes involved. The US Navy has never attempted such a complex decommissioning and much of what is being done is taking place for the very first time.The Enterprise was supposed to have its reactors removed by the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and buried at the Hanford nuclear facility, but the Shipyard doesn't currently have the capacity to do the required work and nobody else can currently do the nuclear work.The Navy preferred option alternative plan suggests that once Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) receives the Enterprise, it immediately take apart and dispose of the reactor compartments. Shipyard workers would also take apart the hull of the ship and recycle the remnant sections. The reactor compartment would be removed encased in cement and stored at the Atomic Energy site in Hanford, Washington, a US Navy nuclear submarine reactor dry storage site containing sealed reactor sections of hundreds US nuclear submarines and a limited number of now scrapped surface escorts.A second option, called the no-action option, involves receiving the defueled Enterprise from Newport News and storing it indefinitely and intact at PSNS. Waterborne storage would call for mooring the Enterprise on the west side of Mooring Alpha.And that place is more a graveyard than a museum.A third option was to have a private ship scrapping company do the entire job. Remove the reactors and cut the ship for scrap. No bidders could meet the environmental problems with the radioactivity. Big problem here is when and where the reactors are removed, she's going to be permanently located because she can't float.So she sits, virtually rotting away in the Nuclear Ship disposal area in Va. awaiting a tow to Puget Sound which should occur in 2018.Now the Enterprise was one of a kind and alternate planning for Nimitz Class. may allow removal of the nuclear section without destroying the ship.Today's plans are to scrap Nimitz Class Carriers at Puget Sound as they are decommissioned.EDIT: INTERESTED IN LATEST PLANS FOR SCRAPING NUCLEAR CARRIERS?See https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/693654.pdf

MacArthur was so disturbed by the lack of progress by the 32nd Infantry division at Buna in New Guinea in November 1942 that he sacked its entire command structure starting with Maj Gen Harding who he replaced with Lt Gen Robert Eichelberger:MacArthur paced around the veranda, lecturing rather than conversing, as was typical of him. “Bob, I’m putting you in command at Buna,” he told Eichelberger. “Harding has failed miserably. I want you to relieve Harding, Bob. Send him back to America, or I’ll do it for you. Relieve every regimental and battalion commander. If necessary, put sergeants in charge of battalions and corporals in charge of companies. Anyone who will fight. If you don’t relieve them, I’ll relieve you. Time is of the essence. The Japs may land reinforcements any night.”MacArthur was worried about his own career. Buna was his first and last chance to restore his reputation after the Philippines:Now his first offensive in the war was careening toward disaster. How much longer could he maintain the confidence of his superiors in Washington and the veneer of greatness among the American people? He felt enormous pressure to produce a victory and begin his long journey back to the Philippines.With the help of the Australians Eichelberger managed to turn Buna around but the 32nd was destroyed as a fighting force:The 32nd Division was shattered and had to be completely rebuilt. It would be another year before the division was ready to go back into combat. As a result, American ground combat capability in SWPA was substantially limited for most of 1943. The U.S. Army’s official historian quite properly termed the campaign “one of the costliest of the Pacific war.”MacArthur eventually declared victory at the end of January after further fighting in Gona and Sanananda but it came at great cost:The campaign cost the lives of 2,165 Australians and 930 Americans. Roughly one out of every 11 Americans committed to battle at Buna did not survive. Another 2,100 GIs were wounded. The battle casualty rate was nearly one in four. Eichelberger later estimated that half the riflemen were either killed or injured. Many thousands more soldiers were, of course, stricken with disease, bringing the overall casualty rate from battle and disease, factoring in replacement troops, to well over 100 percent.Out of 17,000 Japanese in the battle 13,000 died. Eichelberger’s role was overlooked at the time as MacArthur’s publicity machine took over. To MacArthur’s credit however, he was so appalled by the Allied casualty rate at Buna he took measures to develop strategies that would minimise them for the remainder of the war.The Two Battles of Buna32nd Infantry Division (United States) - WikipediaEdit 5/11/2019:To clarify why this was a particularly demoralising battle for US soldiers there are parallels with the Battle of Kasserine Pass in North Africa a few months later; inexperienced US soldiers and commanders were found out of their depth in their first real engagement with the enemy.In this case however, a defeat was avoided because the battle hardened Australians were able to step in.It was particularly demoralising for MacArthur because he had spent months talking up his untested American troops while denigrating the Australians. The high American casualty rate also meant he was forced to rely on Australians comprising the bulk of his land forces until the end of 1943.MacArthur made the most of it however, by describing every victory in New Guinea as an Allied victory. By the end of 1943 his reputation had been fully rehabilitated and he was well on the way to liberating the Philippines.Edit 8/11/2019:As a measure of the savagery of the fighting at Buna, the actual reason why Eichelberger was forced to take command on 16 December 1942 was that the three Brigadier Generals who had been in the field in Hanford MacNider, Albert W. Waldron and Clovis E. Byers, had all been shot over a relatively short period of time. All of them had been within 75 metres of enemy lines.Eichelberger also exposed himself to danger to the same extent as the Brigadier Generals had but was fortunate enough to avoid injury.In accordance with MacArthur's orders, Eichelberger relieved the 32nd Infantry Division's commander, Major General Edwin F. Harding, replacing him with the division's artillery commander, Brigadier General Albert W. Waldron, on 2 December 1942. In an attack on 5 December, Waldron was shot in the shoulder by a Japanese sniper, and Byers succeeded him as commander of the troops in the field. Byers in turn was wounded on 16 December. He became the third American general to be shot at Buna, Brigadier General Hanford MacNider having been shot earlier in the fighting, none of whom was more than 75 metres from Japanese lines at the time. General Eichelberger assumed command, as he was now the only American general officer present. Waldron and Byers were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.MacNider, Waldron and Byers recover in hospital in Australia.Byers recommended Eichelberger for the Medal of Honor but it was knocked back by MacArthur.Clovis E. Byers - Wikipedia

Something about nuclear propulsion systems. Their core is a naval reactor.Naval reactors have been pressurised water types, which differ from commercial reactors producing electricity in that: They deliver a lot of power from a very small volume and therefore run on highly-enriched uranium (>20% U-235, originally c 97% but apparently now 93% in latest US submarines, c 20-25% in some western vessels, 20% in the first and second generation Russian reactors (1957-81)*, then 21% to 45% in 3rd generation Russian units (40% in India's Arihant). The fuel is not UO2 but a uranium-zirconium or uranium-aluminium alloy (c15%U with 93% enrichment, or more U with less – eg 20% – U-235) or a metal-ceramic (Kursk: U-Al zoned 20-45% enriched, clad in zircaloy, with c 200kg U-235 in each 200 MW core). They have long core lives, so that refuelling is needed only after 10 or more years, and new cores are designed to last 50 years in carriers and 30-40 years (over 1.5 million kilometres) in most submarines, albeit with much lower capacity factors than a nuclear power plant (<30%), The design enables a compact pressure vessel while maintaining safety. The Sevmorput pressure vessel for a relatively large marine reactor is 4.6 m high and 1.8 m diameter, enclosing a core 1 m high and 1.2 m diameter. Thermal efficiency is less than in civil nuclear power plants due to the need for flexible power output, and space constraints for the steam system. There is no soluble boron used in naval reactors (at least US ones).The long core life is enabled by the relatively high enrichment of the uranium and by incorporating a 'burnable poison' such as gadolinium – which is progressively depleted as fission products and actinides accumulate and fissile material is used up. These accumulating poisons and fissile reduction would normally cause reduced fuel efficiency, but the two effects cancel one another out.Now what happens with nuclear fuel, it gets safely removed and buried deep under ground as dismantling decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines has become a major task for US and Russian navies. After defuelling, normal practice is to cut the reactor section from the vessel for disposal in shallow land burial as low-level waste (the rest being recycled normally). In Russia the whole vessels, or the sealed reactor sections, sometimes remain stored afloat indefinitely, though western-funded programs are addressing this and all decommissioned submarines were due to be dismantled by 2012. By 2015, 195 out of 201 decommissioned Russian submarines had been dismantled, and the remainder as well as 14 support vessels were to be dismantled by 2020. For the USS Enterprise, after defuelling was completed in December 2016 the eight reactor compartments and associated piping were removed and shipped to Hanford for burial with the submarine reactor compartments.Moreover:In the United States Navy, Refueling and Overhaul (ROH) refers to a lengthy process or procedure performed on nuclear-powered naval ships, which involves replacement of expended nuclear fuel with new fuel and a general maintenance fix-up, renovation, and often modernization of the entire ship. In theory, such a process could simply involve only refueling or only an overhaul, but nuclear refueling is usually combined with an overhaul. An ROH usually takes one to two years for submarines and up to almost three years for an aircraft carrier, performed at a naval shipyard. Time periods between ROHs on a ship have varied historically from about 5–20 years (for submarines) to up to 25 years (for Nimitz-class aircraft carriers). For modern submarines and aircraft carriers, ROHs are typically carried out about midway through their operating lifespan. There are also shorter maintenance fix-ups called availabilities for ships periodically at shipyards. A particularly lengthy refueling, maintenance, and modernization process for a nuclear aircraft carrier can last up to almost three years and be referred to as a Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH).At a shipyard, a ship to undergo ROH goes into a drydock, which is then closed off from the sea. Water is evacuated from the drydock with keel blocks pre positioned under the hull, so the ship's keel area will rest on the blocks as the water is pumped out. At the end of the ROH, the drydock is refilled with water so the ship can be re-floated and removed from the dock. US Navy submarine in drydock filled with seawater. Submarine in drydock drained of seawater at a shipyard. Note blocks (in dark shadow) under the hull. To start ROH, operating procedures are used to shut down and cool down the propulsion power plant to bring it to desired temperatures, pressures, and other conditions. During the ROH, ship's Navy crew stand shutdown watches, and civilian shipyard workers do much of the repair, maintenance, and installation work. During an ROH, all personnel in a maintenance work area are commonly required to wear a hard hat. Land-based naval reactor prototype plants have also undergone similar refueling and overhauls, not at a shipyard but at whatever facility they are located.RefuelingIn a nuclear-powered ship, the nuclear fuel is essentially a solid inside a reactor core which is inside the ship's nuclear reactor. Once a reactor core has gone critical, meaning it has been used during a reactor operation, highly radioactive nuclear fission products have formed in the core, and the core has become highly radioactive. Refueling involves taking the expended core out of the reactor and putting in a new core with fresh nuclear fuel. Because it is so radioactive, removing a core with spent nuclear fuel from a reactor requires elaborate radiological handling precautions. All materials that came in contact with the critical core, including the internal surfaces and coolant water, are considered radioactively contaminated and require special radiological handling and disposal precautions. In addition to radiological training and qualification required for working in radiation areas or with radioactive materials or contamination, radiation exposure to workers is monitored to ensure maximum exposure limits are not exceeded.More on:Refueling and overhaul - WikipediaRead Nuclear Waste Policy Act 1982 and you'll know more about the answer on your question.And there's more:The fuel in a reactor contains uranium atoms sealed within metal cladding. Uranium is one of the few materials capable of producing heat in a self-sustaining chain reaction. When a neutron causes a uranium atom to fission, the uranium nucleus is split into parts producing atoms of lower atomic number cded fission products. When formed, the fission products initially move apart at very high speeds, but they do not travel very far, ody a few thousandths of an inch, before they are stopped within the fuel cladding. Most of the heat produced in the fission process comes from stopping these fission products within the fuel and converting their kinetic energy into heat.US Navy nuclear ships are decommissioned and defueled at the end of their usefueli lifetime, when the cost of continued operation is not justified by their military capability, or when the ship is no longer needed. The Navy faces the necessity of downsizing the fleet to an extent that was not envisioned in the 1980′s before the end of the Cold War. Most of the nuclear-powered cruisers will be removed from service, and some LOS ANGELES Class submarines are scheduled for removal from service as well. Eventually, the Navy will also need to decommission 0HIO Class submarines. US Navy nuclear-powered ships are defueled during inactivation and prior to transfer of the crew. The defuelig process removes the nuclear fuel from the reactor pressure vessel and consequently removes most of the radioactivity from the reactor plant. Defueling is an operation routinely accomplished using established processes at shipyards used to perform reactor servicing work. A disposal method for the defueled reactor compartments is needed when the cost of continued operation is not justified by the ship's military capability or when the ships are no longer needed. After a nuclear-powered ship no longer has sufficient military value to justify continuing to maintain the ship or the ship is no longer needed, the ship can be: (1) placed in protective storage for an extended period followed by permanent disposd or recychg; or (2) prepared for permanent disposd or recycling. The preferred alternative is land burial of the entire defueled reactor compartment at the Department of Energy Low Level Waste Burial Grounds at Hanford, Washington. A ship can be placed in floating protective storage for an indefinite period. Nuclear-powered ships can dso be placed into storage for a long time without risk to the environment. The ship wodd be maintained in floating storage. About every 15 years each ship would have to be taken out of the water for an inspection and repainting of the hull to assure continued safe waterborne storage. However, this protective storage does not provide a permanent solution for disposal of the reactor compartments from these nuclear-powered ships. Thus, this alternative does not provide permanent disposal. Before a ship is taken out of service, the spent fuel is removed from the reactor pressure vessel of the ship in a process called defueling. This defueling removes all of the fuel and most of the radioactivity from the reactor plant of the ships. The fuel removed from the decommissioned ships would be handed in the same manner as that removed from ships wtich are being refueled and returned to service. Unlike the low-level radioactive material in defueled reactor plants, the Nuclear Waste Poficy Act of 1982, as amended, requires disposd of spent fuel in a deep geological repository. Prior to disposal, the reactor pressure vessel, radioactive piping systems, and the reactor compartment disposd package wodd be sealed. Thus, they act as a containment structure for the radioactive atoms and delay the time when any of the radioactive atoms inside wodd be avtiable for release to the environment as the metal corrodes. This is important because radioactivity decays away with time; that is, as time goes on radioactive atoms change into nonradioactive atoms. Since ra&oactivity decays away with time, the effect of a delay is that fewer radioactive atoms would be released to the environment. Over 99.9% of these atoms are an integral part of the metal and they are chemically just like ordinary iron, nickel, or other metal atoms. These radioactive atoms are only released from the metal as a result of the slow process of corrosion. The remaining O.1% -- which is corrosion and wear products -- decay away prior to penetration of the containment structures by corrosion. The Hanford Site is used for disposal of radioactive waste from DOE operations. The pre-LOS ANGELES Class submarine reactor compartments are placed at the Hanford Site Low Level Burial Grounds for disposd, at the 218-E-12B burial ground in the 200 East area. The disposd of the reactor compartments from the cruisers, LOS ANGELES, and OHIO Class submarines wodd be consistent with the pre-LOS ANGELES Class submarine reactor compartment disposd program. The land required for the btid of approximately 100 reactor compartments from the cruisers, LOS ANGELES, and OHIO Class submarines wuold be approximately 4 hectares (10 acres) which is similar to the land area needs for the pre-LOS ANGELES Class submarine reactor compartments. An estimated cost for land burial of the reactor compartments is $10.2 million for each LOS ANGELES Class submarine reactor compartment, $12.8 million for each 0HIO Class submarine reactor compartment, and $40 million for each cruiser reactor compartment. The estimated total Shipyard occupational exposure to prepare the reactor compartment disposd packages is 13 rem (approximately 0.005 additiond latent cancer fatalities) for each LOS ANGELES Class submarine package, 14 rem (approximately 0.006 addtiond latent cancer fatalities) for each 0~0 Class submarine package and 25 rem (approximately 0.01 additiond latent cancer fatalities) for each cruiser package.