
How do you dismantle a nuclear submarine? - kposehn
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150330-where-nuclear-subs-go-to-die
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ggreer
Military submarines are fascinating examples of what can be built when most
financial, environmental, and ethical constraints are removed. The article
mentioned liquid metal cooled reactors. These designs allowed for very small,
very fast nuclear submarines. Soviet Alfas[1] could go over 50mph, faster than
many torpedoes.

The craziest sub I've stumbled upon is probably the 1950's-era Seawolf[2].
Instead of lead-bismuth, its original coolant was liquid sodium. Sodium, a
metal that burns on contact with water, was used as the coolant for a
submerged nuclear reactor! Of course, that wasn't the only "interesting"
aspect of the Seawolf's design:

> The phrase "Blue Haze" was often associated with the boat, which was
> Cherenkov radiation, visible on a dark night, in the sea water surrounding
> the hull...

Shake-out problems and a desire to standardize reactors caused the navy to
switch away from the design, but it's still amazing that it was built and
tested.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-
class_submarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-class_submarine)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Seawolf_(SSN-575)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Seawolf_\(SSN-575\))

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chiph
_For instance both INL and Hanford have suffered unusual radiation leaks from
tumbleweeds blowing into waste cooling ponds, picking up contaminated water,
and then being blown over the facility 's perimeter by the wind._

Radioactive tumbleweeds. There's two words used together that I never
anticipated.

~~~
mikeyouse
Hanford is a disaster of never-before-seen proportions in the US.. It's going
to take decades as well as hundreds of billions of dollars to clean the site.
From reading about how the waste was handled there (dumped down deep unlined
holes in the flood plane), radioactive tumbleweeds are not the least bit
surprising.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site#Cleanup_era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site#Cleanup_era)

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bmir-alum-007
If this happens to include nuclear warheads, esp. in the U.S., all warheads
are currently sent to Pantex in Amarillo, Texas for decomm or refurb. Most of
the staff are ex-US MIL, especially USN and USAF, capable of maintaining Q(S)
clearance.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex_Plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex_Plant)

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hewhowhineth
Dismantling Russian Typhoon class submarine (47 min)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhxGgQ-
Cd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGhxGgQ-Cd4)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-
class_submarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-class_submarine)

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roberto
Very carefully.

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MichaelCrawford
"They sunk my submarine!" \-- a friend of my father's, when Mom came to take
me home from his son's birthday party.

The Sinking of the USS Gitarro

[http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/16.52.html#subj2.1](http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/16.52.html#subj2.1)

I Swear I'm Not Making This Up.

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cygnus_a
with another nuclear submarine?

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caycep
Ask U2? (sorry, couldn't resist...)

