According to the US "Business Insider" website reported on the 2nd, on December 9 last year, the US Navy announced a 30-year shipbuilding plan. The plan, which aims to build a U.S. fleet of 546 ships by 2051, calls for the construction of 404 new ships while 304 ships are decommissioned.
Of these 304 decommissioned ships, 14 are nuclear-powered and will be recycled as part of the Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program, a unique effort dedicated to the safe handling of decommissioned nuclear-powered ships. The group includes 13 nuclear submarines: 11 Los Angeles-class attack submarines and 2 Ohio-class cruise missile submarines.
The last is the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The Nimitz and 13 nuclear submarines are expected to complete the recovery process within the next 5 years. This will be the end of Nimitz's nearly 50-year service life.
The Nimitz entered service in May 1975 as the second U.S.-powered aircraft carrier to be built after Enterprise. Nimitz has participated in at least seven large-scale military operations for the U.S. Navy, as well as numerous patrol and freedom of navigation exercises. After the enterprise was decommissioned in 2012, the Nimitz became the oldest aircraft carrier in service.
Last April, while the Nimitz was on a mission in the Pacific, a small number of its crew members contracted COVID-19, which led to a nearly month-long quarantine in Bremerton, Washington, before it was deployed to the South China Sea with the using the using aircraft carrier Reagan.
After assisting U.S. forces in Somalia, the Nimitz was scheduled to return home in December, but on the first anniversary of the death of Sulaimani, commander of the Quds Force under Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, by the US military airstrike, the Nimitz was suddenly ordered by the Trump administration to turn around and stay in the Middle East as a deterrent. By 1 February, nimitz had been deployed for 240 days when it was ordered to return home.
The Nimitz is expected to be decommissioned in 2022 and the recycling process will begin in 2025. The process consists of at least three stages: inactivation, reactor cell disposal and recovery.
The deactivation period is after most of the aircraft carrier's equipment and components have been substantially dismantled, including the complete removal of fuel from the two nuclear reactors. The fuel was transferred to a shielded transfer vessel and then placed in a specially designed transport vessel for delivery to a naval reactor facility in Idaho.
During reactor chamber treatment, the reactor itself is thoroughly cleaned, sealed and dismantled. They will then be sent to the Department of Energy's Hanford dump site in eastern Washington. Once these steps are completed, any remaining Nimitz components that can be used on other carriers will be removed and ready for use. Some of the components of the USS Enterprise have been installed on the Nimitz during the recycling process.
After that, the Nimitz will be completely scrapped. The recycling process for Enterprise can take up to 15 years, and Nimitz could take just as long.
(Editor: GH)