They have enough fuel to stay at sea for up to fifteen years. The only reason they pull into port is for supplies and equipment overhaul, excluding the reactors. Often times they replenish at sea.
At a nuclear power plant that would mean they would have to refuel 10 times to make it 15 years (on a normal 18 month refuel schedule). That is a lot of "new" nuclear material to store, but more importantly what do they do with the spent fuel? Dump it in the ocean? Power plants have dry cask storage - huge concrete casks that still glow on the thermal cameras at night even after encased in all that concrete.
I wasn't Navy (actually Air Force) but worked nuclear as a civilian, from plants to the NRC itself. I would think that material would have to be offloaded when it is spent, although I'm sure it could be put on another ship for storage on land. I'm honestly curious - any ideas?
No worries - I'll have to ask a few old NRC buddies that were Navy. I'll never forget the first time I saw the dry cask storage at my first nuclear plant - we had 12 built, but were only using one at the time. It lit up bright white on the thermal cams, but there was no difference on the normal daylight cams.
I did cybersecurity for the plants, but there is a lot of crossover with physical security because of things like microwave security, special fencing, camera, iris scanners, x-rays and metal detectors - all stuff that is digital and could be abused by attackers to gain access or even simulate an attack in one area while actually attacking another. Even things like the night-vision scopes and binoculars, and electric safe combination locks are digital so I had to protect them.
I would attack them myself, research them via online sources and manuals, and figure out ways to protect via monitoring (data or camera) or special plugs that require special keys that would be put into any ports that allowed a serial or network connection. Look at the back of a PC sometime and notice all of the open ports that are digital (especially older PCs). I had to invent several blockers with security screws or tamper tape to be within NRC regs. If I was protecting a camera I would have to make sure another camera watched that and the one being protected could see the protector as well - circular logic at its best. If a spent fuel pool had a digital water level float or a digital thermometer (of course they did) they had to be protected to ensure level changes would be addressed immediately.
The worst part was protecting stuff like the tornado sirens everyone is used to seeing. Around nuclear plants they also sound for a nuclear incident, and they could be in the middle of a farmer's field. We didn't own the land but had to work on those alarms, so it would be important to meet the farmer so you didn't get shot wandering into his field. Fun Times...
They have enough fuel to stay at sea for up to fifteen years. The only reason they pull into port is for supplies and equipment overhaul, excluding the reactors. Often times they replenish at sea.
At a nuclear power plant that would mean they would have to refuel 10 times to make it 15 years (on a normal 18 month refuel schedule). That is a lot of "new" nuclear material to store, but more importantly what do they do with the spent fuel? Dump it in the ocean? Power plants have dry cask storage - huge concrete casks that still glow on the thermal cameras at night even after encased in all that concrete.
I wasn't Navy (actually Air Force) but worked nuclear as a civilian, from plants to the NRC itself. I would think that material would have to be offloaded when it is spent, although I'm sure it could be put on another ship for storage on land. I'm honestly curious - any ideas?
Good questions, and I wish I had more information for you, but I don't.
No worries - I'll have to ask a few old NRC buddies that were Navy. I'll never forget the first time I saw the dry cask storage at my first nuclear plant - we had 12 built, but were only using one at the time. It lit up bright white on the thermal cams, but there was no difference on the normal daylight cams.
I did cybersecurity for the plants, but there is a lot of crossover with physical security because of things like microwave security, special fencing, camera, iris scanners, x-rays and metal detectors - all stuff that is digital and could be abused by attackers to gain access or even simulate an attack in one area while actually attacking another. Even things like the night-vision scopes and binoculars, and electric safe combination locks are digital so I had to protect them.
I would attack them myself, research them via online sources and manuals, and figure out ways to protect via monitoring (data or camera) or special plugs that require special keys that would be put into any ports that allowed a serial or network connection. Look at the back of a PC sometime and notice all of the open ports that are digital (especially older PCs). I had to invent several blockers with security screws or tamper tape to be within NRC regs. If I was protecting a camera I would have to make sure another camera watched that and the one being protected could see the protector as well - circular logic at its best. If a spent fuel pool had a digital water level float or a digital thermometer (of course they did) they had to be protected to ensure level changes would be addressed immediately.
The worst part was protecting stuff like the tornado sirens everyone is used to seeing. Around nuclear plants they also sound for a nuclear incident, and they could be in the middle of a farmer's field. We didn't own the land but had to work on those alarms, so it would be important to meet the farmer so you didn't get shot wandering into his field. Fun Times...
Of course but what about the escort ships?
And fuel for the planes.
Our strategic reserve is almost empty.....
I would guess that if the ship is nuclear powered, carrying buku gallons of jet fuel would be trivial. But who am I?
They do carry a lot, but they need tanker support. And a war in the mid east tends to fuk up fuel supply......
And knowing our current administration I doubt the navy's tank farms are full.....
I believe it only has to be refueled once, at 25 years. It was built for 50 year service.
USS George Washington CVN-73, christened in 1990 just finished its first and only nuclear refueling.
"Refueling complex overhauls are performed at the mid-point of a ship’s 50-plus-year lifespan".
https://www.navy.mil/DesktopModules/ArticleCS/Print.aspx?PortalId=1&ModuleId=523&Article=3408521