HASC seeks revival of Nuclear Surface Combatants

[Jack Ray]

Back to nuclear surface combatants? we'll see...

In another potential boost for the Newport News shipyard, the draft bill would require that new classes of surface combatants be designed as nuclear-powered ships.
In today's fleet, cruisers and destroyers are conventionally powered. Only aircraft carriers and subs are nuclear-powered. A decision to go nuclear on cruisers and destroyers could funnel billions of additional dollars to the Newport News shipyard and possibly to Electric Boat - the only two nuclear shipyards - at the expense of conventional yards.

The Navy is studying making the next generation of cruisers nuclear-powered, but it has warned that such a move could add more than $600 million to the price of each ship.

House members said Thursday that the Navy could no longer afford to rely on oil to fuel warships in an age of terrorism.





Boost In Sub Production SoughtHouse lawmakers are writing a bill that would offer a down payment on nuclear components.
By David Lerman
Newport News Daily Press
May 4, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The House Armed Services Committee is drafting a bill that would provide a $588 million down payment to speed up plans to double submarine production.

Despite a dwindling sub fleet, Navy leaders have delayed plans to double production until 2012, saying they need time to bring down the cost of subs.

But key lawmakers have signaled their interest in boosting production - buying two subs a year, instead of one - by 2010 or possibly as early as 2009.

Such a move could help stabilize employment at Northrop Grumman Newport News and at General Dynamics Electric Boat, the only U.S. shipyards that build nuclear subs.

Each Virginia-class sub costs about $2.5 billion. The draft bill endorsed Thursday by the panel's seapower subcommittee would offer $588 million to begin buying nuclear components for a future vessel next year. That down payment, lawmakers said, would give Congress the option of speeding up production years ahead of schedule.

"We have not given up on building submarines," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., the subcommittee chairman. "We recognize we have fallen behind on that."

Navy leaders reacted cautiously to the proposal. While applauding the additional money, they continued to express doubts that a doubling of sub production is affordable before 2012.

Navy Secretary Donald Winter, appearing before a Senate panel Thursday, called the advance money for sub components "a good way of reducing risk in the program." But he stopped short of endorsing an accelerated production schedule. Officials have said they need time to shave hundreds of millions of dollars off the price tag of subs to make the plan affordable.

In another potential boost for the Newport News shipyard, the draft bill would require that new classes of surface combatants be designed as nuclear-powered ships.

In today's fleet, cruisers and destroyers are conventionally powered. Only aircraft carriers and subs are nuclear-powered. A decision to go nuclear on cruisers and destroyers could funnel billions of additional dollars to the Newport News shipyard and possibly to Electric Boat - the only two nuclear shipyards - at the expense of conventional yards.

The Navy is studying making the next generation of cruisers nuclear-powered, but it has warned that such a move could add more than $600 million to the price of each ship.

House members said Thursday that the Navy could no longer afford to rely on oil to fuel warships in an age of terrorism.

"It makes no sense at all to have a nuclear-powered carrier, while the escort vessels that have to protect it are conventionally powered and could run out of fuel," Taylor said. "We want to see that we always have the fuel to get into a fight."

Unlike conventionally powered ships, which need frequent refuelings, a nuclear cruiser would come with all the fuel needed for its projected 35-year life.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, the subcommittee's ranking Republican, called going nuclear "simply the right thing to do." Bartlett said a recent Defense Department study found that the risks of relying on oil for fuel would make the Navy's ability to deploy rapidly to conflicts "unsustainable in the long term."

But Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, expressed concern about any proposed requirement to make future cruisers nuclear. The idea deserves careful study, he said, but now is too soon to commit to such a decision.

The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to endorse its annual defense policy bill next week.

The Senate Armed Services Committee hasn't drafted its own version yet.

[kennylibben]

i'm going to have to agree with the move for the moment, it sucks i know but we must stop our oil dependency at all costs - and solar panels are not going to work well on a ship.


by the way - has a nuclear powered vessel ever been sunk by enemy fire? what if the core was damaged - how catastrophic would it be to the environment - and how wide of a radius?

[Jack Ray]

None have been damaged by ememy fire, but the Russians have had a few bad experiences. The Americans have had the Thresher and the Scorpion accidents.

Jack

[Walt]

by the way - has a nuclear powered vessel ever been sunk by enemy fire? what if the core was damaged - how catastrophic would it be to the environment - and how wide of a radius?[/quote]

No Nuke has been sunk as a result of combat.
The Radiation released would not be a major catastrophy, and if in deep water pretty much well contained..
The USN has lost 2 nuke boats and the Russians have lost only goodness knows how many and their reactors have not been a problem...yet....
The reactor vessel is very heavy and rather small and would sink fast. It would take a very large hit to open a Tea Kettle anyway. Contamination would be mostly from the vessels coolant water etc.
The nuke weapons ( if any) aboard the target ship would be the major concern.

[Mark Petersen]

All the more reason to take Fusion reactor research away fro DOE and hand it off to the Navy. Robert Bussard was doing work for DARPA and the Navy and the work looked promising. But to take the next step would go over the spending limit that kept the work off of DOE's radar screen. Instead we will pour billions into the research reactor to be built in France that will most likely lead nowhere. The following is a talk Bussard gave at Google HQ last fall

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6673788606

[Guest]

House members said Thursday that the Navy could no longer afford to rely on oil to fuel warships in an age of terrorism.

It seems to be a popular belief amongst politicians that any proposition, no matter how ludicrous, can be completely justified by the easy act of inserting the word "Terrorism".

[gs]

If we run short of oil, the navy won't be the cause and we will have more to worry about than our ships running out of fuel. In wartime there is always rationing. If we stop driving our cars there should be enough oil for our ships & planes.

Much better to spend the $ on nuclear power plants.

Isn't anyone thinking logically? Why break the bank? Is it a plot to reduce the size of the navy further?

[Seasick]

Nuclear will probably only be part of an all electric system. The reactors will be used to generate elecrticity whaile gas turbines will provide electricity in a surge. It should work fine if it is done correctly.

[chuck]

Nuclear will probably only be part of an all electric system. The reactors will be used to generate elecrticity whaile gas turbines will provide electricity in a surge. It should work fine if it is done correctly.

Very few things as done as correctly as it takes to "work fine". Most of the time we need to redefine "work fine" afterwards.

In an electrical warship, what is the base load requirement during normal operation, what is the peak load requirement during high maneuver and large electronic expenditure?

[Andy G]

Instead we will pour billions into the research reactor to be built in France that will most likely lead nowhere.

I'm not so sure about that. The work at Caradeche will certainly define a lot of the (still outstanding) engineering problems, and ITER as a result may well provide the first viable plans for functional and efficient fusion power stations through the work.

Hell, when faced with the alternative it has to be worth it...and I'll personally be laughing my socks off when the middle east becomes redundant in terms of providing energy to the technological west.

With working fusion power we can forge a CO2-less, hydrogen-based economy: though I suspect we'd still have to make "gas" for the energy densities required by shipping and flight.

Andy

[Seasick]

Chuck asked:

In an electrical warship, what is the base load requirement during normal operation, what is the peak load requirement during high maneuver and large electronic expenditure?

Nice thing about energy is that it can be measured in multiple unit types.

Ticonderogas for instance:

LM2500 gas turbines provide up to 100,000 SHP maximum, but the usual requirement is 86,000 SHP (USNI Combat fleets 2005-2006) and the electrical load is provided for by 7,500 kw (3 � 2,500 kw Allison 501K gas turbine sets).

100,000 SHP is the equivelent of 74.56 megawatts.
86,000 SHP is the equivelent of 64.1 megawatts.
7,500 kw is 7.5 megawatts.

The ordinary sepected load would be 71.6 megawatts for an all electric Tico and 82.06 megawatts maximum.

A reactor for a dual source ship like a Tico would most likely be about 65 megawatts and gas turbines to boost to 85 megawatts.

All electrical ships have electrical engines that can efficiently turn at the needed rpm, the reduction gears are no longer needed, that makes life much easier.

[Werner]

All electrical ships have electrical engines that can efficiently turn at the needed rpm, the reduction gears are no longer needed, that makes life much easier.

Just don't get the bus bars wet....

Experience in WW.II was the electrical systems were more vulnerable than their geared counterparts. I wonder if that's still true.

[Guest]

Chuck asked:

In an electrical warship, what is the base load requirement during normal operation, what is the peak load requirement during high maneuver and large electronic expenditure?

Nice thing about energy is that it can be measured in multiple unit types.

Ticonderogas for instance:

LM2500 gas turbines provide up to 100,000 SHP maximum, but the usual requirement is 86,000 SHP (USNI Combat fleets 2005-2006) and the electrical load is provided for by 7,500 kw (3 � 2,500 kw Allison 501K gas turbine sets).

100,000 SHP is the equivelent of 74.56 megawatts.
86,000 SHP is the equivelent of 64.1 megawatts.
7,500 kw is 7.5 megawatts.

The ordinary sepected load would be 71.6 megawatts for an all electric Tico and 82.06 megawatts maximum.

A reactor for a dual source ship like a Tico would most likely be about 65 megawatts and gas turbines to boost to 85 megawatts.

No, the idea arrangement for a Tyco from nuclear power persepctive would be for the nuclear engine to be just strong enough to power the ship at crusing speed and normal electric load, with everything else being boost. Nuclear engine's cost, capabilities and safety are all enhanced by reducing the need to throttle it to different operating levels in normal operation.

So if the ship requires 15,000 shp for normal crusing (not an unreasonable estimate for a 9,000 ton ship traveling at 20 knots), then 20,000 shp should be nuclear, the rest GT boost.

Your idea has been tried by the Soviets, in the form of the Kirov class CGN. The Soviet rationalized the propulsion even more. They noticed that nuclear engine requires a steam turbine to covert heat to usable power, and steam turbine is indifferent to whether the steam comes from the nuclear pile or a boiler. So rather than having 2 different sets of turbines, they used a single set of steam turbines that draws steam from the nuclear power plant through a heat exchanger for normal crusing, and they added an additional oil fired boost stage to the steam cycle to increased the energy contained in the steam in order to provide peak power. Certainly that seems to be a more rational system than one that would require two different turbines for cruising and boost.

[Seasick]

Your idea has been tried by the Soviets, in the form of the Kirov class CGN. The Soviet rationalized the propulsion even more. They noticed that nuclear engine requires a steam turbine to covert heat to usable power, and steam turbine is indifferent to whether the steam comes from the nuclear pile or a boiler. So rather than having 2 different sets of turbines, they used a single set of steam turbines that draws steam from the nuclear power plant through a heat exchanger for normal crusing, and they added an additional oil fired boost stage to the steam cycle to increased the energy contained in the steam in order to provide peak power. Certainly that seems to be a more rational system than one that would require two different turbines for cruising and boost.

The Kirov system is different. The Reactors supplied steam to the turbines which would be superheated by the boilers in a very complex pipeing nightmare.

My system is different. The combination is different. The electric motors run on electricity, the gas turbines generate electrical power seperatly. The electricity from the gas turbine generators goes onto the main bus and is pulled by all ship electrical systems the same way that electrical power from a third reactors steam turbine's generation would be added. The problem with the Kirov's system was that it was hopelessly complex and ill conceived.
Electricity is easier to combind.

[Guest]

My system is different. The combination is different. The electric motors run on electricity, the gas turbines generate electrical power seperatly. The electricity from the gas turbine generators goes onto the main bus and is pulled by all ship electrical systems the same way that electrical power from a third reactors steam turbine's generation would be added. The problem with the Kirov's system was that it was hopelessly complex and ill conceived.
Electricity is easier to combind.

The Kirov system works well enough in practice, and needing just one set of turbines is a big bonus.

The efficiency of electric motor demands very high voltage, and the main drive motor would preferably have tens of thousands of volts. So it would have to be isolated from the ship's system, which for the sake of damage control, should operate on low voltage, say 36 volts.

[Werner]

Don't forget: The USN plans to greatly complicate things by using podded electric motors 40 feet or so below the water line. In addition, they plan to use supercooled motors and generators. The plumbing for that will add an entirely different level of complexity to a combat system.

[Guest]

Nuclear power requires trained personel and a large support infrastructure that noone wants to pay for or maintain. That and politics killed the Nuc cruiser in the USN.
Costs resulted in the Tico using a Spruance hull and propulsion vs a new design much less nuclear power. Result was a badly overloaded/crowded ship.

Personel and support costs aren't considered by the politicians when they are talking any ship/equipment program.

[Seasick]

Average Anual Unit Operating Cost as evaluated in 1996:

Average cost per unit in FY1996: (2006 estimate)
Ticonderoga CG class $28 million. ($35.8 million)
Kidd DDG class: $25 million. ($32 million)
Arleigh Burke DDG class $20 million. ($25.6 million)
OH Perry FFG class: $16 million. ($20.4 million)

Now for some nukes:

Average cost per unit in FY1996:
Virginia CGN class: $40 million. ($51.1 million)
California CGN class: $40 million. ($51.1 million)

[Dustermaker]

i'm going to have to agree with the move for the moment, it sucks i know but we must stop our oil dependency at all costs - and solar panels are not going to work well on a ship.


by the way - has a nuclear powered vessel ever been sunk by enemy fire? what if the core was damaged - how catastrophic would it be to the environment - and how wide of a radius?

I think that if one of our CVN's goes down from enemy fire we have worse problems on our hands than environmental concerns.

[Werner]

Pure water does not become radioactive. The reactor and it's by products are very heavy elements (2-3 times heavier than lead). The solids and solutions tend to sink into the soil directly below the ship.