The U.S. Navy Budgets $50 Million to $100 Million Just to Retire a Nuclear Submarine: A U.S. Navy nuclear submarine does not become ordinary scrap when its crew lowers the colors. Retirement begins a controlled industrial process: weapons come off, classified systems are stripped, the reactor is shut down, spent fuel is removed, the reactor compartment is sealed for federal disposal, and the remaining hull is cut into recyclable sections.
The Navy’s fiscal 2027 force-structure plan budgets $50 million each to inactivate the Los Angeles-class submarines USS Annapolis and USS Boise. The same document assigns $100 million each to USS Ohio and USS Henry M. Jackson, two much larger Ohio-class boats.
Those figures are not all-in disposal prices. They cover the opening retirement work funded in fiscal 2027. Storage, spent-fuel handling, reactor-compartment packaging, transport and final hull recycling appear in later program accounts. The Navy does not publish one standard final price because the cost changes with submarine class, condition and shipyard workload.
The first stage alone takes about a year on a fast-attack boat. USS Pittsburgh entered dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on July 25, 2019, and completed inactivation on Aug. 5, 2020, almost one month early. The boat then moved to a storage mooring to wait for final recycling.
The Navy Removes Weapons and Shuts Down Every Major System
Weapons are removed before the submarine reaches the recycling yard. Workers then take out technical manuals, tools, spare parts, loose furnishings, cryptographic equipment and other classified material. Refrigerants and industrial gases are offloaded. Fuel-oil tanks, hydraulic systems, seawater lines and sanitary systems are drained and cleaned.
The ship’s electrical systems are deenergized, temporary power and ventilation are installed and the main storage battery is removed. The Navy’s official nuclear-ship disposal guide describes this as inactivation, the work required to place the submarine in a safe and stable condition before disposal begins.
The Reactor Fuel Leaves Before the Reactor Compartment
Defueling does not mean lifting the entire reactor out of the submarine. Nuclear-qualified workers remove the spent core and load the fuel into shielded transport containers. It then travels by rail to the Naval Reactors Facility at Idaho National Laboratory for examination, processing and storage.
Naval spent fuel moves in Type B containers made from solid stainless steel and accompanied by federal couriers. A 2025 Naval Nuclear Laboratory safety document said the program had completed 924 container shipments to Idaho since 1957 without a release of radioactivity or injury to workers or the public.
Puget Sound Cuts Out and Seals the Reactor Compartment
Removing the fuel ends the reactor’s ability to operate, but pipes, shielding and structural metal still contain residual radioactivity. Shipyard crews cut piping and cabling that cross the reactor-compartment boundaries, drain remaining liquids, remove regulated material and seal every opened line.
The submarine’s pressure hull becomes part of the disposal package. Workers cut the reactor section away from the forward and aft portions, install heavy steel end bulkheads and test the completed package for leaks. The sealed compartment is then placed on a reinforced barge and transported to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site for long-term federal disposal.
PUERTO PRINCESSA, Philippines – (Dec. 9, 2018) – The Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Greenville (SSN 772) prepares to moor alongside the submarine tender USS Emory S. Land (AS 39), Dec. 9. Emory S. Land is a forward-deployed expeditionary submarine tender on an extended deployment conducting coordinated tended moorings and afloat maintenance in the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Willoughby/RELEASED)
Los Angeles-class attack submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Radiation Control Is Only One Part of the Safety Work
The shipyard also manages asbestos, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls and other hazardous material found in older submarines. Trained workers use protective equipment, controlled work areas, contamination monitoring and licensed waste contractors. Material released into ordinary recycling streams is surveyed to confirm that it carries no detectable radioactivity from the naval propulsion plant.
The Navy’s 2019 review reported average annual occupational radiation exposure below two-tenths of a rem for monitored shipyard workers. It also said no shipyard worker had exceeded two rem in one year since 1980, below the federal occupational limit of five rem.
Mechanical safeguards protect the heavy work. The reactor package is air-tested, steel fixtures support it during movement and blocks are inserted during hydraulic jacking so the compartment cannot fall if pressure is lost. The transport barges are inspected under Coast Guard and commercial marine standards.
Ohio-Class Submarines Cost More and Take More Work
A Los Angeles-class attack submarine has one reactor and a hull built around torpedoes and cruise missiles. An Ohio-class submarine is far larger and includes a long missile compartment. Ballistic-missile boats also require verifiable dismantlement of their missile-launch sections before final recycling.
That difference helps explain the current $50 million budget for each retiring Los Angeles-class boat and $100 million for each Ohio-class submarine. The Ohio retirements also remove undersea strike and special-operations capacity, while the fleet already faces a projected attack-submarine shortfall.
The Recycling Queue Can Add Years
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard maintains active submarines while inactivating and recycling retired ones. A boat can finish defueling and move into waterborne storage until dry-dock space, workers and funding become available. That period also allows radioactive material inside the defueled plant to decay before later work begins.
The Navy is removing older hulls while Virginia-class production remains below the fleet’s replacement need. The small Seawolf force offers little numerical relief, and the future SSN(X) program remains years away.
Scrap metal and reusable equipment recover part of the cost, but nuclear-submarine recycling is not a profitable shipbreaking job. The Navy pays for nuclear labor, dry-dock time, security, radiological controls, fuel transport, federal disposal and environmental compliance long after the crew has left.
The decommissioning ceremony ends the submarine’s commissioned service. The industrial job ends years later, after the spent fuel reaches Idaho, the sealed reactor compartment reaches Hanford and the last nonradioactive sections of the hull leave Puget Sound as recycled metal.
About the Author: Harry J. Kazianis
Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) was the former Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest (CFTNI), a foreign policy think tank founded by Richard Nixon based in Washington, DC. Harry has over a decade of experience in think tanks and national security publishing. His ideas have been published in the NY Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and many other outlets worldwide. He has held positions at CSIS, the Heritage Foundation, the University of Nottingham, and several other institutions related to national security research and studies. He is the former Executive Editor of the National Interest and the Diplomat. He holds a Master’s degree focusing on international affairs from Harvard University.
