Preparations are underway to dismantle USS Enterprise, the Navy’s first nuclear carrier, at the same shipyard where it was originally built.
The United States Navy’s oldest active nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz, is currently operating in the Philippine Sea in what could be the vessel’s final deployment before being retired. However, an even older flattop is now preparing for her final trip.
Hunting Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding is preparing for the dismantling of the former USS Enterprise, the U.S. Navy’s first nuclear-powered supercarrier.
WAVY.com reported last week that the ship’s elevators are permanently attached to the flight deck before Enterprise’s move to another shipyard that will dismantle and recycle the famed warship. The pre-dismantling work is being conducted at the shipyard that built “The Big E” between 1958 and 1961.
USS Enterprise served for more than fifty years, until she was retired from service in 2012, and formally decommissioned in 2017.
At the time of her inactivation, she was the third-oldest commissioned vessel in the U.S. Navy after the wooden-hulled frigate USS Constitution and the USS Pueblo, the latter of which was captured by North Korea in January 1968.
Texas or Alabama Prepare to Dismantle the Enterprise
Commercial shipbreakers in Brownsville, Texas, or Mobile, Alabama, will be charged with disposing of the carrier. The process is complicated because the ship’s eight nuclear reactors prevent it from being preserved as a memorial. It was deemed too complex and expensive to dismantle the boat, remove the reactors, and restore it as a floating museum.
The defueled reactor plants and numerous components will eventually be sent to authorized waste disposal sites around the country.
A final tow date has yet to be announced, and the final tab for the costs of dismantling the carrier has yet to be determined. Past estimates have suggested it could cost anywhere between $554 million and $1.55 billion, while work could take a decade or longer!
Even the time spent waiting has proven costly.
As Maritime Executive reported in late 2023, “the Navy expects to save significantly, considering it would cost $10 million annually to maintain the ship safely and in an environmentally acceptable way if no action is taken. Partial dismantling at a commercial facility with the Navy responsible for the propulsion plant would cost between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion and take fifteen years to complete. The Navy projects between $554 million and $696 million to contract a private commercial facility to break down the vessel and expects the work will require five years.”
By comparison, the U.S. Navy actually sold the retired conventionally powered supercarriers USS Kitty Hawk and USS John F. Kennedy for one penny each. Those two flattops were retired in 2009 and 2007, respectively.
In January, the John F. Kennedy completed her trip from the United States Navy’s Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia to International Shipbreaking Limited in Brownsville, Texas.
Efforts to preserve either as a floating museum also fell through, likely because the layout of the carriers could reveal critical details to the Nimitz-class and Gerald R. Ford-class carriers now in service.
The End of the Line for the USS Enterprise
The U.S. Navy is now preparing to streamline the recycling of USS Nimitz, which could also involve a multi-step process that will include inactivating the ship, disposing of the reactor compartments, and then final scrapping. It could also take up to fifteen years.
While useable parts will be salvaged for other carriers, it is still a costly process that should raise questions about why the U.S. Navy continues to build carriers that take years to construct, cost billions of dollars, and then require billions more dollars and nearly as many years to break up. Critics have also warned that they’re massive targets.
The end of the line for USS Enterprise should be a portent of why it is time to end building nuclear-powered carriers.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a thirty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
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