Talk:Nuclear marine propulsion

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Contents 1 Rickover & Panoff 2 Antarctic reactor 3 POV in Naval nuclear accidents and their ramifications on politics 3.1 Naval nuclear accidents and their ramifications on politics 4 Edit War over "classified material" 5 History 6 Naval nuclear accidents 7 Deployment of Nuclear Submarines in article

[edit] Rickover & Panoff

The naval nuclear power program section could be expanded to include the contributions from Admiral Rickover and Bob Panoff

[edit] Antarctic reactor

The reactor operated at the U.S. Antarctic base in the 1960s and 1970s was not a marine propulsion design and was developed totally outside the Naval Reactors (Rickover) oversight umbrella. I've removed the reference here, but it makes for an interesting story probably deserving of its own article. See:

• Army Nuclear Power Program
• Atomic Energy Insights, Oct-Nov 1996 issue

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by A. B. (talk • contribs) 21:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV in Naval nuclear accidents and their ramifications on politics

The second paragraph starts to read unprofessionally, including some bolding that probably shouldn't be there. The third and final paragraph is almost a soap-box travesty.Autocracy 16:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the section in question; personally, I think it's beyond rewriting to conform with NPOV, smacks of much OR (not a single cite) and entirely unencyclopaedic. I include it below should anyone want to try to hammer it into shape. Good luck with that, though.Falk Macara 11:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC) /*I made this edit prior to creating an account.*/

[edit] Naval nuclear accidents and their ramifications on politics

Two US nuclear submarines, the USS Thresher (SSN-593) (sank) and USS Scorpion (SSN-589) (sank) had issues unrelated to their reactor plants and still lie on the Atlantic sea floor. The Russian or Soviet Komsomolets K-278 (sank), Kursk K-141 (sank), K-8 (sank), K-11 (refueling criticality), K-19 (loss of coolant), K-27 (scuttled), K-116 (reactor accident), K-122 (reactor accident), K-123 (loss of coolant), K-140 (power excursion), K-159 (sank recently), K-192 (loss of coolant), K-219 (sank after collision), K-222 (uncontrolled startup), K-314 (refueling criticality), K-320 (uncontrolled startup), K-429 (sank twice), and K-431 (reactor accident) submarines have all had problems of some kind. The Soviet icebreaker Lenin is also rumored to have had a nuclear accident.

While not all of those were nuclear-related accidents, since they happened to nuclear vessels, they have a major impact on nuclear marine propulsion and the global politics of our time. Combine nuclear fuel on an already complex, modern vessel, and the results are not always ideal. See List of military nuclear accidents. In the case of warships, there are such major longevity and station-keeping advantages to using nuclear power that the Navy is willing to risk the consequences. This decision has received a lot of criticism over the years, especially by those who wish that all nuclear weapons, reactors, and medical devices could be regulated out of existence. Their point is primarily that nuclear reactors are intrinsically linked to nuclear weapon proliferation, warmongering, military oppression, and a number of other ails. The nuclear reactor plant is seen as a key which unlocks all of these warlike ambitions. From the point of view of the those in the nuclear power industry (civilian and military), there are many peaceful and practical reasons to continue operating nuclear reactor plants. The reactor plant is seen as just another technological aspect of some vessels. Not too many people want diesel fuel banned, although it is capable of being an environmental and chemical hazard to human life. Diesel submarines have sunk with their nuclear weapons on board. Such a senseless debate is not going to be extremely effective for either side.

Sensible people do understand the difference in a reactor plant and an atomic bomb. It just so happens that many nuclear-powered ships tend to carry nuclear weapons. So the connection is very real. Nuclear safety is paramount for the people operating, maintaining, repairing, and refueling nuclear warships. For the men and women caught in the middle of this issue, the crews of these ships, there is a great need to be trained, ready, and to be a member of a team. Set aside the designs of the vessels, and you end up with a crew made up of human thinkers capable of acting and reacting as true citizens of the world. An error by one or many of them could spell disaster for themselves, their crewmates, their nation, and entire regions of the planet. It is these issues which made the elite nuclear-trained cadres of the first world become the cornerstone of nuclear deterrence and reactor safety. The nuclear maritime forces are known for their secrecy, intelligence, integrity, and attention to detail. In the West, they receive extensive screening, training, and performance evaluation. They also are paid higher than their non-nuke counterparts. See Naval Reactors and Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy.

[edit] Edit War over "classified material"

An anonymous editor from ip 131.122.41.165 (reverse maps to usna.edu -- US Naval Academy) has consistently removed references of the percentage content of U-235 in US submarines. I've replaced it and cited a source. Editorializing, I consider it quite stupid of somebody to take it upon themselves to make statements and attempt to enforce what is classified from an unoffical position; exponentially more so on a system that tracks changes.Autocracy 16:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure foreign governments have long since read any openly published speculation on enrichment levels and drawn their own conclusions as to such material's reliability. All a Naval Academy student's attempts at censorship can do is lend the material some credibility. The U.S. Navy has long used a phrase in response to any outside commentary on its nuclear technology and capabilities: "We can neither confirm nor deny ..." I suggest our censor just leave it at that and drop this battle. Count on the successors to Admirals Sergey Gorshkov, Siméon Bourgeois, Zheng He, the Marquis of Tamandaré and Kanhoji Angre to have plenty of their own skilled nuclear engineers sorting this out without recourse to Wikipedia.
--A. B. ^(talk) 19:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

"Enterprise remains in service." Don't you think a date would be nice? E.g., "To date (Oct. 2007), Enterprise remains in service." (Or are readers assumed to have utmost confidence in Wikipedia that if the vessel were to go out of service, that fact would be reflected very, very soon thereafter on the page? And if so, is that confidence justified?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.124.246.141 (talk) 01:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naval nuclear accidents

This heading is incorrect, or at least quite misleading because the accidents listed are not all nuclear accidents (e.g., Thresher and Scorpion). I strongly suggest changing the heading to read; "Nuclear ship accidents."Tvbanfield 22:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any kind of consensus on this issue. Why are the Scorpion and Thresher sinkings listed among the nuclear accidents? Neither sank due to a problem with the reactor plant, and there is no evidence of leakage or any other reactor-based problem post-sinking. This was highlighted again just this week when Petri Krohn reverted an edit by 59.184.1.86 removing these two non-nuclear accidents from the list. Rem01 02:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, I don't think these two belong on the list. In fact, there are probably Soviet submarines listed that also shouldn't be there. It might be useful to split this in order to distinguish naval nuclear accidents on the one hand from something like "non-nuclear accidents involving nuclear-powered ships" and/or "nuclear-powered ship accidents resulting in release of radioactivity." I know those two categorizations are fairly cumbersome and poorly worded, but from cursory review it seems that on this list we've lumped together every nuclear-powered ship that's ever sank for any reason along with legitimate reactor accidents. Rem01 02:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I would say that if an eartquake destroys a nuclear power plant, releasing its nuclear material into the biosphere, it would be called a nucler accident. The same goes for subs. From the point-of-view of nuclear safety it makes no difference what caused the accident. If it is not the reactor itself or its protective systems that fail, then it is called "common mode failure". -- Petri Krohn 02:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. That said, there's no evidence of any kind of nuclear accident or release of radioactive material connected with the sinkings of the Scorpion or the Thresher. So in what way can they be classified as "naval nuclear accidents"? If they remain on this list, shouldn't ever nuclear-powered vessel ever to sink be included? Or more appropriately, shouldn't every vessel that has sunk for a reason unrelated to its nuclear reactor be moved to some other list? Rem01 07:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

My two cents:

1. As others have pointed out, the section heading is incorrect as relates to Scorpion and Thresher.
2. We should list somewhere non-nuclear accidents such as the Scorpion and Thresher losses.
3. We need consensus here, not just reversions and edit warring.
4. I like the idea of a separate list, as suggested by Rem01. If radioactive material has not been released by a particular accident, that should be so noted.
5. The Soviet losses should be reexamined for proper categorization when these lists are reworked.

--A. B. ^(talk) 14:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

It is so simple, just change the title to : "Nuclear Naval Ship Accidents" and leave the list as is.Tvbanfield 20:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not really that simple, as a list titled "Nuclear Naval Ship Accidents" doesn't belong embedded in an article about "Nuclear marine propulsion." I still believe this list should be changed IAW my 2 Aug and A.B.'s 6 Aug comments - I just haven't had the time and energy to sort it out yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rem01 (talk • contribs) 09:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC) - Wow, that thing's really on the ball, huh? Tried to fix it myself and it beat me to the punch. Rem01 10:05, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deployment of Nuclear Submarines in article

This one line:

Harold Wilson, the then British Prime Minister, considered, but did not deploy, nuclear submarines to power Belfast during the Ulster Workers' Council Strike.

This line appears under the header Power Plants and is seemingly disconnected from the rest of the section, or indeed the article itself. It has no relevance to describing Nuclear propulsion at sea. Even in the context of the incident, the propulsion method of the submarines is irrelevant, since any submarine deployed by the UK would have been nuclear powered. It's relevance is lowered even more by a lack of citation. Finally, the fact that the subs were just considered, but never deployed, makes this line about as irrelevant as it can get. This is better discussed in the article on the Strike itself. Deleting.

--Bridgecross 21:16, 12 November 2007 (UTC)