What to do with decommissioned nukes
I think the government should consider using these small reactors to provide electricity to military bases around the country. It would be a way to lower the cost of operating the bases and would also reduce the carbon footprint of the base for those who believe in global warming. Even if it supplied only a portion of the power, it would still be worth looking into.The U.S. has decommissioned over a hundred nuclear subs. These "nukes" are eventually dismantled at the Puget Sound Naval Base in Bremerton, Washington. The nuclear fuel is removed. The radioactive portions of the reactor compartment are shipped, by barge, some 500 kilometers down the coast, and moved inland 40 kilometers by truck to storage trenches in the Hanford nuclear storage facility. Hanford is in a desert area, and it will take about 600 years for the buried metal components to completely degrade.
The non-radioactive portions of the sub (over 95 percent of the metal) is sold for scrap. Even with that, it costs the U.S. Navy about $30 million to dismantle each nuclear sub.
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