NAVY NUCLEAR—POWERED SURFACE SHIPS — BACKGROUND, ISSUES, AND OPTIONS FOR CONGRESS
| Author(s) | Ronald O'Rourke |
| Publisher | Congressional Research Service |
| Date | 2010 |
| Pages | 33 |
| Format | |
| Size | 1 Mb |
| D O W N L O A D | |
All of the aircraft carriers serving the United States Navy are nuclear-powered. However, this does not relate to the other surface vessels of the Navy fleet. And this is why and where the need for this study appeared – the interest was expressed by the Congress in wider use of the nuclear power on the surface ships. This publication contains the results of the study performed to check the possible design options.
The authors have compared various options to get full understanding of the advantages that nuclear vessels have over the conventionally powered vessels in terms of operational presence and time required to get to the area of operation located far away. The booklet starts with some background information followed by the chapter where the potential issues for the Congress are explained including such important factors as costs, training of the crew, operational effectiveness and potential environmental impact.
The legislative activities have been addressed in two separate chapters covering the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Defense Authorization Acts. Two data tables supplement the main text of the report and provide some additional information needed to have a full picture of the problem.
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