Nuke Power for Warships
Congress wants to solve some of our nation's dependence on foreign oil by building nuclear powered surface warships, according to Defense News:
Although all new Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered, the service decommissioned its fleet of nine nuclear cruiser carrier escorts in the mid-1990s as too expensive to maintain or build, and most surface ships built since then have been powered by gas turbines. But Taylor said he would hold hearings to re-examine the idea.
“The Achilles heel of the American military — and it’s nothing that our enemies don’t already know — is fuel,” he said.
“Adm. [Hyman] Rickover [a Navy champion for nuclear-powered ships from the 1940s to 1980s] had us well on our way in the early 1960s to a fleet that didn’t count on foreign countries for its fuel,” Taylor said. “And even back then the country produced more than half its fuel. Now that we produce way less than half of our fuel it just makes abundant sense that one of the ways we can cut our dependence on foreign oil is to build as many surface ships as we can — even some of the smaller ones — that have nuclear power.”
I like this idea, but I hardly see how nuclear power will give us the extra ship numbers in a hurry some are calling for.
Although all new Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered, the service decommissioned its fleet of nine nuclear cruiser carrier escorts in the mid-1990s as too expensive to maintain or build, and most surface ships built since then have been powered by gas turbines. But Taylor said he would hold hearings to re-examine the idea.
“The Achilles heel of the American military — and it’s nothing that our enemies don’t already know — is fuel,” he said.
“Adm. [Hyman] Rickover [a Navy champion for nuclear-powered ships from the 1940s to 1980s] had us well on our way in the early 1960s to a fleet that didn’t count on foreign countries for its fuel,” Taylor said. “And even back then the country produced more than half its fuel. Now that we produce way less than half of our fuel it just makes abundant sense that one of the ways we can cut our dependence on foreign oil is to build as many surface ships as we can — even some of the smaller ones — that have nuclear power.”
I like this idea, but I hardly see how nuclear power will give us the extra ship numbers in a hurry some are calling for.
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