and what about final disposal do we just let them sink and pollute a large area of ocean or what
Ship-Submarine Recycling Program
Before SRP can begin, the ship or submarine must have her nuclear fuel removed..... Spent nuclear fuel is shipped by rail to the Naval Reactor Facility in the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), located 42 miles (67 km) northwest of Idaho Falls, Idaho, where it is stored in special canisters.
At PSNS the SRP proper begins. A submarine is cut into three or four pieces: the aft section, the reactor compartment, the missile compartment if one exists, and the forward section. Missile compartments are dismantled according to the provisions of the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty. Reactor compartments are sealed at both ends and shipped by barge and multiple-wheel high-capacity trailers to the Department of Energy's Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, where they are currently in open dry storage and slated to be eventually buried. The burial trenches have been evaluated to be secure for at least 600 years before the first pinhole penetration of some lead containment areas of the reactor compartment packages occurs, and several thousand years before leakage becomes possible.......
By the end of 2005, 195 nuclear submarines had been ordered or built in the US ..... The last of the regular Sturgeon attack boats,
L. Mendel Rivers, was decommissioned in 2001, and
Parche, a highly modified Sturgeon, was decommissioned in 2004. The last of the initial "41 for Freedom" Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) submarines,
Kamehameha, was decommissioned in 2002. Decommissioning of the Los Angeles boats began in 1995 with
Baton Rouge. Additionally, a handful of nuclear-powered cruisers have entered the program, and their dismantling is ongoing. The first aircraft carrier due for decommissioning that would enter the SRP is planned to be
Enterprise, intended for withdrawal in 2013.......
The Russians are now doing the same thing.... with funds provided by the USA, Norway, Germany and others...
They used to do it this way.......
