The Biggest Navy Aircraft Carrier Problem You Never Saw Coming

The billions of dollars it costs to build and maintain a “floating city” aircraft carrier stands in stark contrast to the seemingly “worthless” value such ships have after their service life is complete. 

If a decommissioned aircraft carrier does not become a museum or emblem for posterity, it presents a significant and difficult challenge.

A carrier comprises large amounts of steel, valuable metals, weapons, and electronics, yet it can actually cost money to dispose of a carrier.

Processing, dismantling, and scrapping the metal and the ship’s many technologies are so expensive that the United States Navy actually pays scrap yards to receive, dismantle, and essentially junk the ship.

The main goal is to harvest and sell recyclable metals from the ship.

However, there is yet another irony: the cost of towing a giant, decommissioned carrier can be greater than the cost of the metal itself.

These technologies may have aged by the time an aircraft carrier is decommissioned. However, it remains important to protect those technologies.  

Salvage Technology?

Yet, it seems almost inconceivable that the technologies on the carrier would not have tremendous value for resale or use of some kind. There is another factor in this because breaking down, extracting, and repurposing advanced technologies built into the ship may also prove quite costly.

This labor can lower the profit margin for any scrap company or buyer interested in leveraging profit from the ship’s structure, hull, and technologies.  

Despite being built with numerous advanced technologies, it is quite possible that when a carrier is decommissioned, many of its command and control materials, sensing, and weapons systems may be obsolete or massively outdated and of little value to future ships. 

Nuclear materials require appropriate management, as they can cause environmental or health problems.

Sheer Mass of Metal

Despite the required procedures, a decommissioned aircraft carrier contains nothing short of a massive amount of metal materials that can ultimately be put to extremely valuable use through recycling. Metals the size of ship hulls, decks, and compartments can be junked, melted, and potentially repurposed for other critical building enterprises. 

Should junkers discover a way to recycle some of the massive amounts of metal built into the ship, the steel could be used to build new ships, cars, buildings, and other metal structures. 

The electronics may not be entirely useless either, as much of the wiring, display screens, and even computer components can be salvaged or repurposed in some way. Sensors can be modified or upgraded into modern weapons systems, or deck-mounted guns can be re-engineered with advanced ammunition and fire control. 

Despite these possibilities, the fact remains that disposing of a massive carrier, an asset seemingly of limitless value in life, can become nearly worthless in death.

This is partly due to the extensive procedures necessary to fully dispose of a carrier, which includes far more than simply breaking down, melting, or disposing of metal.

The ship needs to go through a formal inactivation process wherein the nuclear fuel is removed from the reactors.

As part of this process, the Navy must prepare an Environmental Impact Statement to assess the possibility of hazardous or harmful materials damaging the environment.

About the Author: 

Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University