Old Aircraft Carrier Sold For A Penny

[unhappycamper]

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Old-Aircraft-Carrier-Sold-For-A-Penny-11-7-2013.asp

Old Aircraft Carrier Sold For A Penny
by James Dunnigan
November 7, 2013

The U.S. Navy recently sold a decommissioned (in 1993) aircraft carrier (USS Forrestal) for scrap. The ship yard that will take the Forrestal apart (All Star Metals of Texas) paid the navy one cent ($.01) for the ship. That’s because this was the best deal the navy could get. That’s because it will cost many millions to take the ship apart in a legal fashion (being careful to avoid releasing any real or imagined harmful substances into the environment). The other alternative was to sink the Forrestal at sea. But this requires partial disassembly (to remove anything that could or might pollute the ocean), that would be even more expensive.

~snip~

Since the 1990s, sending warships to the scrap yard has not been considered a viable alternative. It's all about pollution, bad press, and cost. That was because of the experience with the largest warship to be scrapped to date, the 45,000 ton carrier USS Coral Sea. This ship took until 2000 (seven years) to be broken up. Thus, the new ecologically correct process was not only expensive but it took a long time. Then the navy discovered that the cost of scrapping a nuclear powered carrier like the USS Enterprise would be close to a billion dollars. This was largely the result of a lot more environmental and safety regulations. With so many navy ships (especially nuclear subs) being broken up in the 1990s, and all these new regulations arriving, the cost of disposing of these ships skyrocketed. This was especially true with carriers.

So for over a decade the navy just tied up retired ships and waited for some better solution to appear. That never happened. In fact, the situation has gotten worse. The navy only has one ship scrapping facility (Brownsville, Texas), so only one carrier at a time can be dismantled. Using official estimates of the time required to dismantle each of the biggest ships, it'll take seven decades to get rid of the surviving conventionally powered carriers. Note also that the conventional carrier in the absolute worst shape, the USS John F Kennedy, is the one being officially retained in category B reserve (but only until Congress forgets all about her, of course). Name recognition really does count.

It gets worse. With the really vast number of single hull tankers being scrapped and large numbers of old, smaller-capacity container ships laid up and likely to be offered for scrap fairly soon, the market for difficult-to-scrap naval ships is going to shrivel and the price for scrap steel will drop. Efforts to get the navy to include the costs of disposal in the budget for lifetime costs has never caught on and now it's obvious why not. The real nightmare begins with the first nuclear powered carrier (the 93,000 ton USS Enterprise), which began the decommissioning process in late 2012 (with the lengthy removal of all classified or reusable equipment). The cost of dismantling this ship (and disposing of radioactive components) may be close to $2 billion.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

1. $2 billion for the Kennedy,

that's one expensive funeral!

[Turbineguy]

2. All these problems would go away if we'd only elect more teabaggers.

The cost of scrapping would be paid for by reducing funding for veterans, the poor and education. The environmental problems would dissappear by providing exemptions.

You see? It's not so difficult! Simple solutions to complex problems.

Didn't the DoD get into "lifecycle cost analysis" decades ago?

[warrant46]

9. Your post is deadly accurate

The right wing religious hate mongers need these powerful toys, to keep their particular brand of xistian religion and economic stranglehold of the entire world SAFE and SOUND.

The poor, disabled and elderly will continue to suffer at the hands of this band of thugs, who need these monstrosities to prop up their evil philosophy of world domination.

[Nika]

3. I remember this ship.

The USS Forrestal was the carrier that caught fire during the Vietnam War while in Southeast Asia.

[pscot]

13. Wasn't that the one caused by Hot Start McCain?

[Nika]

14. That has been alleged.

If he did and didn't get blamed, then it was probably who his Daddy was that got him off the hook.

That was a terrible fire that killed many men and cost a great deal of money. If he had been the one who did this by hot dogging like that he should have paid a price that would of left him out of the loop of moving up to eventually becoming a U.S. senator.

[bluedigger]

4. It's an interesting problem I had never considered.

It's almost as if they were planned to be destroyed in conflicts...

[on point]

5. Typical poor Econ analysis. The costs for environment are called out as a problem

But the probably much larger costs of not taking care of the environment are never mentioned. So typical repuke logic says environment regulation costs are unneeded

Need to look at total costs and trade offs, including long term environment costs

[enlightenment]

6. So, if it costs "many millions"

to safely scrap the ship, how much money will the scrap yard make off the carcass, when all is said and done? The article makes it sound like they won't profit (since the Navy had to practically beg them to take it off their hands) - but I'm not sure I'm convinced that this yard is doing it out of the kindness of their heart.

[MADem]

7. OMG....the Forest Fire is, at long last, gone to the razor blade shop.....

Lessons here? They've got to find a better way to construct vessels, with an eye towards the eventual scrapping process. And yes, they need to include those costs into the construction estimates.

The Forrestal, many may remember, is the famous vessel that had that baaaaaaad fire--the one where John McCain lost "aircraft number two." The footage from that conflagration was mandatory viewing for Navy enlisted and officer recruits for many years--might still be, for all I know.

[Laelth]

8. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[shraby]

10. It's no wonder we can't have nice things.

[kimbutgar]

11. Too bad they can't re condition these ships and use as housing for the homeless and poor.

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. You can't possibly be serious.

There is just no way in hell you are serious. The only explanation I can think of as to why you wrote that is because you have great concern for the "homeless and poor" and think that they would be happy living just about anywhere, including aging naval vessels.

[Fuddnik]

12. They should have just put John McCain back on it.

He burned the hell out of it the last time he was on it.