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Duker

Thanks for that. Interesting earlier background from 2 years back
https://www.navylookout.com/project-to-dismantle-ex-royal-navy-nuclear-submarines-inches-forward/

It seems that a number of the boats have been long out of commission but still have the nuclear fuel ( as of 2022)

Last edited 3 months ago by Duker
Patrick Rawnsley

This process is presumably much more expensive than the US method. Why is the cash strapped RN going for gold standard?

magenta

I wanted an an answer to that very question, thought I might find it on the NAO site, I didn’t but NAO it did explain a lot of other things.

Kicking the can comes to mind.

N-a-B

It’s really simple. We don’t have the equivalent of the Hanford trench, which is the on land repository, in a nuclear reservation, for their encased RPV.

We also have a slightly more hysterical antinuclear movement than the cousins.

Grant

I have wondered if it would be more cost effective to pay the Americans to do it for us? Would you think that’s an option?

N-a-B

Not possible. The US congress – in a piece of stunning perspicacity – made it illegal to accept foreign nuclear waste. That was done to actively prevent the good ideas club from offering to help solve the Murmansk/Novaya Zemlya/Vladivostok problems by helping that nice Mr Yeltsin with his ongoing environmental catastrophe.

Not often pollies are ahead of the game, but credit where its due.

Grant

Fascinating. Thanks for answering.

Spartan47

The size of the UK compared to the US, Russia and even france would make this a more challenging prospect. No handily placed deserts for a start

Supportive Bloke

The original plan was to store the whole reactor section until it had cooled (radioactivity wise) or technology caught up with the task. But in a pretty similar way with a bullied welded over each end.

Others are right this is the gold standard disposal method with costs to match.

I’m pro nuclear energy and submarines. But I do have to wonder about what is being done here.

Duker

Dont need a ‘surface’ desert

In Yorkshire they are building a potash mine which is 4600 ft below ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulby_Mine

Salt domes are other ‘underground deserts’

N-a-B

And right there is evidence you’re not a Brit. If you were, you’d know that the only reason said mine – currently stalled by it’s developer last I looked – was going ahead was quality mining jobs and port export.

Just try floating the idea of a nuclear repository instead and watch the Yorkies collectively lose their minds. That’s before you get to Greenpeace let alone FoE. They did for UK ship recycling on spurious grounds, nuclear will send them into overdrive.

Rudeboy

Yes a nuclear repository under a national park….and near Whitby is not going to float anyones boat….

But we also are going to have to build a nuclear repository at some point…I’ve never been clear on what Greenpeace and FoE’s (although both are much diminished recently due to their more energetic elements moving to JSO etc…) end game is…they know we have to have a repository at some point.

N-a-B

Hmmmm. I’m not sure they do.

I suspect they think we don’t need it by simply wishing it away, just like they believe we don’t need anything beyond solar/wind/tidal to generate power.

Gareth

…nuclear will send them into overdrive.

..or meltdown?

N-a-B

That would be ecologically unsound…..

Duker

You are wrong about the Boultby potash mine – its currently working and since 1968or so
Using the internet shows there is a Woodsmith potash mine project thats stalled- who knew

The point of the deep underground depository is that its suitable in such places
Listen to the naysayers and no road or even major hospital would be built

Hows this for deep
Lucky Friday silver-lead-zinc mine in Idaho its main shaft down to 2627m or 8600ft
Boultby mine photo below

Boulby_Mine1
Last edited 3 months ago by Duker
N-a-B

You found a different mine. Well done you.

The basic problem of public approval still applies though. Not a cat in hells chance.

Duker

I found the working mine as an example of deep shafts and tunnels in a geologic stable formation. Your claims about me are just as absurd- much like many other claims to authority on some item.

Its a million times better than sitting on the surface at a naval base. Yes there will be fuss at the start, but these things pass.
Where I live and 16 houses with a shared private driveway a neighbour objected over the fibre optic cable being laid as she was ‘anti 5G’.

Supportive Bloke

“ Lucky Friday silver-lead-zinc mine in Idaho its main shaft down to 2627m or 8600ft”

How is that relevant?

Last time I checked Idaho wasn’t in the UK?

Potash mines would be a useless repository as the potash is soluble, in fact potash is usually extracted by hot fluid working.

In a geological nuclear store you need no water flow or possibility so there is no chance of nasties being leached out.

Duker

Not ‘usually’
Yorkshire deep potash mines arent solution mined , its extracted by tunnels and shafts- the clue is in the method
Apparently the different types of potash decide the method, and the solution mined stuff ( sulphate of potash) is only a small share of the market and too deep for shafts
Salt domes are another geologic formation thats suitable for nuclear storage

Your geologic thinking is wrong also , since the potash and salt exist at depth its a guarantee that water hasnt dissolved it away at geologic time scales – much longer than a blink of the eye 5000 yrs

You havent thought through any of this at all.

Supportive Bloke

That is quite funny given what I used to do for a living.

But never mind.

Keep up the Googling…

Duker

The Yorkshire facility is actually ore mined , you didnt seem to know that, do try to keep up from something long back.

Canada is the world largest potash production, all in Saskatchewan. The largest company there is Nutrien ( 20 mill tons pa) with 6 different facilities, only one is a solution mine

Supportive Bloke

If you knew anything about geological nuclear repositories you would understand the substantial flaw in what you have written.

You can’t just Google something very technical and start arguing.

The point is leachate and seam mobility – try Googling that.

Frankly

Perhaps because the tiny little island we inhabit does not afford the same disposal privileges landsize wise that our larger nefarious brethren enjoy.🤔

magenta

Thank you NL

Investigation into submarine defueling and dismantlingReport – Value for money
Date: 3 Apr 2019

An interesting read,

… Background to the report
The Ministry of Defence (the Department) uses nuclear-powered submarines, including those with and without nuclear weapons, to meet its operational requirements. Since 1980, it has removed 20 submarines from service and replaced them with newer ones. It has committed to handling the resultant nuclear liabilities responsibly and disposing of submarines “as soon as reasonably practicable”. Disposal includes removing the irradiated nuclear fuel (defueling), safely storing submarines, taking out the radioactive parts (dismantling), and then recycling the boat.
To date, the Department has not yet disposed of any of its 20 retired submarines, with nine of them still containing irradiated fuel. The Department plans to take a further three submarines out of service over the next decade. The Department stores out‑of‑service submarines at dockyards in Devonport (Devon) and Rosyth (Fife), which the nuclear regulators have assessed as safe.

https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-submarine-defueling-and-dismantling/

magenta

Lost an earlier post of links, will repost them singly.

Defence inventory managementReport – Value for money
Date: 13 Sep 2023
https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/equipment-plan-2023-to-2033/#downloads

magenta

Report – Value for money
The Equipment Plan 2023 to 2033Date: 4 Dec 2023

https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/equipment-plan-2023-to-2033/#downloads

Google it.

Leah

Takes so long

Barry from Barrow.

A Lifetime.

CADMonkey

Why is it being done in the two locations? Why not just the one?

robert

in case scotland get independence nope real reason as with pole tax try it in scotland first then move it all down south and sack scottish workers who made the process safe

Barry from Barrow.

Not really though.

Sean

As poor an argument as you’re spelling and grammar.

Mike

Your

Duker

Too silly for words, typical of SNP muddled thinking

1984 Rosyth closen for nuclear submarine decom
1993 switched to Devonport by tory government as they proposed privatising HMNB ( Babcock already had the management contract)
1997 was the devolution referendum which passed – after the shift from Rosyth!
The possibility of a Scottish government didnt even exist 1993

Interesting that Government of Scotland Bill passed some stages in the Commons 1913 but like the similar Home Rule Government of Ireland act of 1914 was dropped by the start of WW1

N-a-B

The real reason is that when the first boats were being decommissioned, both Rosyth and Devonport were nuclear certified sites. The boats at Rosyth were defuelled there while Rosyth was still active as a nuclear site. When all nuclear work switched to Devonport in 1993, the nuclear certification for Rosyth was not renewed, hence no more boats there.

They’ve stayed there since, purely because there is so little space available in Devonport, noting that all four R-boats (which are nigh-on 50m longer than an SSN) would be a real struggle to fit in 3 basin in Devonport.

People have actually looked at towing dead boats either north or south, but its a bit of a risky endeavour. Not least because the boats fittings aren’t rated for ocean tow.

The first recyclings are being done in Rosyth (with limited nuclear recertification) because the boats there are all defuelled and the docks are available.

Last edited 3 months ago by N-a-B
ATH

Defueling the long dormant boats is the main process that will need to be certified for the Devonport part of the operation.

Barry from Barrow.

Simply down to Storage Space.

Simon G

Wasn’t HMSM Dreadnought from the 1960s the first Nuclear sub to be disposed of?

Hugo

That ones still around

Callum

Easier to start the process on a newer boat in what is likely better condition. You’re less likely to encounter issues that bring the process grinding to a halt before it really gets going

Duker

Dreadnought had a US reactor inside a british designed hull and machinery, Valiant was the 1st all British one

Baz

Dreadnought is class of 1. She’s the oldest vessel and has a lot of secondary systems contamination. Swiftsure had the shortest commission and is a good vessel to prove the processes needed to safely decommission these old boats.
You can’t ignore the role of ONR in the development of the process, or the penury of the RN in funding.
Successive governments have preferred to limit available funding to avoid further delays to the production of new boats.

Supportive Bloke

Exactly this – choose an easy one to do first to gain confidence and experience.

Not that this is really that easy!

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

All

  1. My good mate Dave, who was for many years the UK’s most senior nuclear inspector, used to hold his head down in his hands whenever he was talking to me about this particular subject: i.e. defuelling and then safely disposing of the old RN submarines.
  2. Then he would ask me for a large refill of his glass – strictly for medical purposes you understand – to calm his nerves.
  3. Reading this article – and especially looking at the NL photo – I now understand why Dave decided to retire before this particular programme of works started on site!

Several key background points:

  1. Back in the late 1980’s – entirely concidentially that timing coincided with the simultaneous end of the (first) Cold War – a very big change in the key UK law meant that the MOD and RN lost their Crown Immunity
  2. Evey single assumption that had previously been made by the RN – ever since HMS Dreadnought had first got its rudder wet back in the 1960’s – simply went out of the office window: overnight.
  3. It was that one key legal decision which really “put the cat amoungst the pigeons” with regards to the RN’s “long-standing plans” to dispose of their old submarines.
  4. Quite simply: “Bodging” and “Making it up on the hoof” was no longer allowed!
  5. And so – over the entireity of the past three and a half decades of indecision and pontification nobody – in either the Whitehall based civil service and/or in the RN leadership – has ever been either able to, and/or willing to, take any of the key engineering decisions
  6. Those decisionns were always very necessary – indeed essential – for deciding “how, why and when” to safely dispose of all of our old nuclear-powered submarines.
  7. “Indecision” is what happens when the large cadre of technically illiterate – and also it has to be said completely unqualified – individuals occupies the entire chain of command – i.e.those whom are directly responsible for this ongoing omni-shambles do not know what they are doing…..

So:

  1. To avoid the very-obvious risk of towing a submarine – and thus the risk of “accidentaily on purpose loosing it deep in the very deep sea trench that lies in the fouteeen miles of seawater between Northern Ireland and Scotland” – I can see no reason whatsover why the already-defuelled boats now being stored at Devonport cannot be taken up to Rosyth; on a semi-submersible ship.
  2. Can somebody not phone the Dutch – obviously asking the BT operator to reverse the interntional phone charges – and ask the Dutch if we can hire one of their large semi-submersibles ships for a few months? They would only need to fit few cradles to the deck.
  3. As others have noted above, why on earth cannot the entire reactor unit – once defuelled and thus partially decontiminated – be kept as one complete unit? Do we as a nation really know better than the rest of the world: or are we just really stupid? (Possibly this is a symptom of Long Covid – or maybe just Long Chinese Bat-Flu?)
  4. We all know that the final long term storage of all redundant and contaminated nuclear facilities – both military and civilian – must be at Sellafield.
  5. And Drigg, just down the road from Sellafield, is the existing UK store for all low level radioactive waste. It currently has plenty of spare space!
  6. So why not just take the entire reactor section: including the entire outer “protective hull” to Drigg from Rosyth? and just cut the rest of the sub up at Rosyth (for very fashionable recycling as razorblades)

Finally, please do not forget what the editor of Navy Lookout was far too polite to mention in this latest piece – namely that Babcock are stil officially on the Naughty Step with the oforementioned Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR): – and they have been stood on that naughty step for quite a few years now…

One can expect more articles – on delays and cost overruns etc – to follow “soon”

Regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

  • Hot off the Press
  • Only this week, the world’s three largest and also most-profitable big corporations – Microsoft, Google and Facebook – have all announced big plans: so all three have now agreed commercial parterships with three separate US nuclear reactor companies.
  • This supply of steady electrical juice – i.e. regular volts, amps and ohms etc – is now needed to power their very-power-hungry new AI data centres
  • Very surprisingly, simply because wind turbines and solar panels do not work to effectively generate electricity on still and also cloudy days (……who would ever have guessed that !!!!) they are all now buying new, and totally unproven, nukes.
  • It really worries me that, to date, these three giant company’s only proper engineering expertise has been to – quote – “move fast and break things
  • Has anybody ever told them that when a live nuclear reactor stops working properly…. one cannot just turn it off; then pull its plug out from the mains; then wait another ten minutes – before turning it all back on again?
Supportive Bloke

You rightly point out the loss of Crown immunity changed the two standard answers to everything.

– we are the RN we know what we are doing; and
– OSA – nuclear – need to know

That had previously been the core rational for a range of debacles some of which we can talk about…

The idea of the old deformed nuclear sub on a barge is tempting but it is a change of environment so would need a full H&S case.

Personally I would

– defuel the reactor fully
– take it to Rosyth
– chop the ends off
– weld a stout bulkhead over each end
– leave at Drigg as a resource for future generations

Which is as you say back to plan ‘A’.

The biggest problem is getting it to Drigg.

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Supportive Bloke

You are thinking on exactly the same lines as me.

However

  1. I was suggesting taking all of the redundant and already defuelled boats up to Rosyth asap. I believe that this approach is now essential.
  2. All of Devonport “landside” is now “completely chocka” – stuffed full of a complete hotch-potch of old dock infrastructure and old boats; newer ships being refitted etc
  3. Thus MOD / RN / Bacock will never be able to sort out theiir overall omni-shambles they have created over the past few decades at Devonport = unless they have more space.
  4. Critically, there needs to be big spaces created to build some proper new big bits of civil engineering infrastructure (esp nuclear) to refit subs and frigates.
  5. I will “agree to disgree” with your “rather negative asessment” of how advantageous it would be to take a complete and structurally-sound old submarine up to Rosyth – i.e. by loading it (complete) onto a large semi-submersbile ship.
  6. However, it must be an alreadty defuelled boat that is moved
  7. Yes it will require a budget and a new safety case: but not great deal else.
  8. After all, Nottingham was carried halfway around the globe, with most of its structurally-significant undersides being “rather susceptable” to rising damp (i.e. following its overnight fracus with a rock, just after a run ashore: a fracus which the rock quite-easily won…)
  9. Once at Rosyth, the old reactor unit and that key section of hull must become “Sealed for life”. Thus, as you quite-rightly suggest, it needs to be suitably encased by a couple of new tranverse bulkheads.
  10. Transferring the old reactor to Drigg should be, once again, done by ship. It would simply require a very big crane on the quayside at Rosyth and another one at Barrow (ABP)
  11. Then, once the ship has off-loaded the old / sealed reactor at Barrow, it should be easy enough to take the complete unit by road up to its final disposal at Drigg, by moving it on a heavy-lift transporter.

However, one final set of comments now needs to be added.

  • In a sane world, about thirty-five years ago: the very big organisation called UK PLC would have decided collectively to have built a single fully-enclosed nuclear certified drydock, one preferably located near the final /permenant disposal site (so either at Sellafield / Drigg; or at nearby Barrow).
  • That single purpose built and thus fully-dedicated facility would have allowed just one old RN submarine at a time to be “properly deconstructed” ……
  • ………..so, by 2024, there would not be a long queue of old boats waiting for the knackers yard….
  • ………however we do not live in a sane world…
  • and so we now have to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear..

regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

PS

I must go now….I want to win the lucrative MOD contract for supplying them the numerous large lorryloads of circular metal cutting disks for the one, and only, 9 inch diameter angler-grinder being used on this project (i.e. as shown in the NL photo above…..) – that must be the next PPE procurement scandal…

spellchecker

Ah, those loose submarines in the deep.

Duker

“all now buying new, and totally unproven, nukes”

No they arent.
Microsofts deal is with an existing nuclear plant in Pennsylvania thats dormant. It just needs to be approved to restart.

Theres nothing unproven about small reactors- thats how nuclear plants used to be sized – 400-600MW each reactor
Nor is high temperature gas cooled reactors unproven which is the X-energy module

In fact small reactors are the focus of this story , in a nuclear submarine. Is that unproven ? Although they work with HEU which is a no no for civilain plants , all low enriched

graphic-reactor-xe100-cutout1
Last edited 3 months ago by Duker
Supportive Bloke

The modular nuclear reactors are Gen IV – Magnox, which you are obliquely referring to was Gen I.

Very different beasties.

There are no Gen IV nuclear reactors under 1MW in service.

Now I’d agree that a lot of nuclear engineering is now well bottomed out by the likes of RR. But PWR3 is a new thing to them. We all know #1 Carrie’s the risks and as with hulling new warships or whatever things get easier as the kinks are ironed out.

So yes, Gen IV small reactors are strictly speaking unproven but is it really a big risk? No, it isn’t as most of the nuclear engineering is the same and that comes with decades of experience as to how to do it.

Where I’m more sanguine is with the new entrants who seem to think building SMR’s is easy because nuclear was done decades ago…look at all the issues EDF has got with its designs and they have loads of experience with reactors.

Duker

Thanks for that.
X-energy is just one design approach and thats in US – Amazon is a part funder of their development but its not a certainty any thing will come from it. The share of the money is chickenfeed for Amazon. Googles partner Kairos is some sort of molten salt heat transfer is different again.
For Britain , RR just used the PWR tech from its submarine development and similar for 100s land based commercial reactors

I looked a bit into whats publicly known about PWR3 development, which only seems generic.
What they said was the RN has had around 80 reactor cores for its submarines since Dreadnought. There isnt 80 subs, but it does suggest that previously what was thought to be a refuelling- the nuclear fuel rods are replaced – is actually a full core replacement.

Civil reactors with LEU of course just replace the fuel rods and quite often.

Supportive Bloke

I’d meant GW in the above but that should have been pretty obvious from the context.

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Duker

The very old nuclear power plant which those world-leading AI experts at Microsoft are now buying – with the truely hare-brained idea of restarting it – is the existing Three Mile Island nuclear plant:

…..or rather: the “notorious” Three Mile Island nuclear plant…

Back in early 1979, so back when you were still a figment of your parent’s imagination….. Hollywood released an epic blockbuster film called “The China Syndrome” : one staring the very curvey anti-nuclear protestor, actress Jane Fonda.

That term China Sydrome was the hithertoo entirely theoretical one = the term for when a super-heated nuclear core melts through the base of a power plant in the US of A – and thus it starts to “head down south” , through the Earth, heading towards China…

One Saturday, this particular US nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island suffered a small issue:

  • Initially it was the nuclear engineering equivalent of what happens when one leaves the lid open on the top of an electric kettle when one is trying to boil water for making a nice cup of tea (i.e. the steam will depart very quickly, leaving via the open apperture in the top of the kettle)
  • In big boy’s nuclear engineering, this type of incident is known as a critical loss of coolant.
  • However – if more energy is still being input and also then the safety devices (emergency cut-outs) fail to work properly – then the kettle itself will soom start to meltdown.
  • Thus the first quite-small fault caused what might best be described, in modern speak, as a very urgent mental health crisis inside ithe control room at Three Mile Island,
  • the near meltdown was of both the nuclear reactor itself, and also, it has to be said in this case, of the plant operators.
  • On that fateful Saturday lunchtime they collectively had not a scooby-do (clue) as to what to do next.
  • So, all the operators were soon pressing all of the wrong buttons and also pulling all of the wrong levers etc – thus making an “already bad situation far worse”
  • so thousands of local mothers – hearing the breaking news on all of their local radio and TV news channels at lunchtime – had the right idea.
  • They packed their husband’s and kids up in their cars, and evacuated……so very long lines of family cars were soon being photographed driving fast:
  • …..straight past the big billboards that were advertising Jane Fonda’s new Hollywood blockbuster opening in their local cinema’s…
  • All in all, a classic case of fact meets fiction….

Three Mile Island “almost did” a Chenobyl, or Fu*kishima (note 1)

————————–

The final US official investigation into this near-disaster said – and I am now only slightly paraphrasing their key words – that the senior nuclear design engineer for Westinghouse was (eventually) phoned at his home at about 2pm. He then, quite correctly, advised the plant operators of the correct course of action:

  • He asked them look at one valve reading (they had ignored it)
  • then, when that key reading was read back to him
  • he instructed the plant operators to emergency flood the reactor core with plenty of fresh water.
  • thus preventing those very-excited neutrons getting “too jiggly”

Had he not told them what to do that, then – without any doubt within just a few hours – there definitely would have been a total meltdown of the plant’s nuclear core…

(..which is precisely what happened to the Soviet’s at Chernobuyl a few years later = hence why the Soviet Union no longer exists….)

———————————

However, what the official inquiry did not point out to the great mass of the unwashed general public was what that very-same senior nucear design engineer had originally said – on the final summary page of his original long statement which he had given to that far-reaching inquiry

Once again, I am only very slightly paraphrasing his words:

“Overall, I consider that it was very fortunate that my two teenage son’s Junior League baseball team was playing at home that weekend. Had they been playing their key game away, then my family would have already have left our home about thirty minutes before that phone call came in (i.e. to him, from the panicing plant operators over at Three Mile Island…. )

and please remember, it was a landline call

…..because mobile phones had not been invented yet,,

Thus Three Mile Island remains one, of several, very good examples why one should never let little kids play with nuclear reactors or, come to mention it, play with nuclear weapons.

Overall, nukes are, strictly, only for us grown-ups to play with….

i.e. nukes come with what Hollywood calls an 18+ certification…

Regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

PS

  • I hereby provide what I openly admit is completely unlicenced and also completely unregulated financial advice (and so illegal) to all readers of Navy Lookout.
  • For those of you who might own a few shares in the gaint, and hithertoo very-profitable, Microsoft Corporation and/or may soon be considering buying a few more shares; to help fund its very-noble quest to develop its highly advanced AI systems powered by carbon-neutral nuclear electricity = SELL YOUR SHARES!

Note 1: Fu*kishima

  • The offical three-letter IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) code for uniquely identifying that plant had always been, ever since it was first built: FUK
  • So, back in 2011, during the huge triple reactor meltdown at Fukishma in Japan, all the official messages issued by Japan’s excellent nuclear safey agency – them detailing out the electrical failures, meltdowns and subsequent hydrogen gas explosions etc etc – came out with that unique code on them
  • Those urgent pdates were soon being sent out worldwide.
  • However, each urgent safety update message was being accidentially translated into English, including American English, with a four-letter code: so Fuc* 1; Fuc* 2 etc;
  • In total, there were about two dozen urgent official communiques issued by the Japanese nuclear safety agency with that rather large – and it also has to be said “very very appropriate” – heading plastered right over them ….
  • before somebody at IAEA (quite nicely) pointed it out to them
  • to be fair to the Jap’s = they did have rather more urgent things on their mind in 2011…
John Pattison

I was one of the original crew of the Swiftsure I was on her during her laying of the first plate during her full build and subsequent sea trials and subsequent entry into the fleet she was the first of her type her crew was made up very smart and intelligent individuals and her captain was the most highly versatile individual and his background before joining us was highly regarded it is sad to see her scrapped but that is the lifetime of most submarines and ships farewell and following seas my old friend. JOHN P