The USS Nimitz (CVN 68) has long been one of the most prized items in the United States Armed Forces. It is the aircraft carrier nuclear propulsion leader of its class, and one of the largest warships in the world: it can transport, armed to the teeth, almost a hundred planes and helicopters in the company of more than six thousand crew members from one point to another on the planet.
Yes ok, according to Military News, since its commissioning in 1975 it has completed some 28 deployments and thousands of aircraft launches with its catapult system, its retirement date seems set in stone. After an operational extension, CVN 68 will cease service in 2026, which means that she will be scrapped in its entirety. Now, this task comes with enormous complexity.
The scrapping of a nuclear aircraft carrier is not so simple
While the United States has been tasked with decommissioning more than 130 nuclear-powered ships in recent decades, it has never had to deal with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Nimitz class. CVN 68 is the first of this family of six ships to say goodbye to the country’s defense ranks and, consequently, marks the end of an era. The withdrawal process that has just begun promises to be long and tedious.
Last April, the US Navy announced that Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News shipbuilding division would undertake the task of defining the scrapping requirements that those in charge of putting an end to the mythical aircraft carrier should comply with. The preparation of this document, they explain, will take into account a wide variety of logistical, economic or environmental factors.
A report from the United States Government Accountability Office allows us to size ahead the complexity of this scenario. According to the GAO, the Navy’s experience in scrapping has been limited to jobs that were relatively low in budget and complexity. The definitive scrapping of the parts of a nuclear submarine, for example, is around 26 million dollars.
The panorama changes substantially when we talk about CVN 65, a steel mass with millions of meters of cables with hundreds of advanced technological modules that interact and work in unison to fulfill its mission in any war scenario. In this case, they point out, the entire project related to the scrapping of the aircraft carrier can exceed one billion dollars and even take several years to complete.
One of the most complex parts of the operational end of the Nimitz-class flagship is the “disposal” of its two nuclear reactors. Westinghouse A4W. At this point, precisely, is where other government offices such as the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation and even the US Environmental Protection Agency come into play, who must agree.
The truth is that they still have to define a viable process that includes dismantling the reactors, reducing the volume of radioactive waste and its conversion in search of a final product suitable for transport and final storage. All this, it should be noted, closely monitored by the Department of Defense and escorted by members of the Navy and the Coast Guard.
It should be noted that the USS Nimitz is the second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier scheduled for scrapping. The first is the also legendary USS Enterprise, which was decommissioned in 2017 and that it has also faced difficulties. The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was going to handle the aforementioned process, but kitsap sun points that it is devoting its resources to the maintenance of the active fleet of ships.
Faced with this scenario, the navy could rely on the work of private shipyards, possibly located in Texas, Alabama or Virginia. The USS Nimitz could follow the same path. In any case, the United States already boasts the flagship of its new Gerald Ford class, the CVN 78, which a year ago reached its initial operational capability (IOC, for its acronym in English).
Images: United States Navy | United States Department of Defense
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