Officer of the Watch has a ten and a half minute video and pictorial of Russian Nuclear icebreakers. Interesting to see the number and variety of ships.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog
Officer of the Watch has a ten and a half minute video and pictorial of Russian Nuclear icebreakers. Interesting to see the number and variety of ships.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
Some impressive ships right there
I’m jealous of the Russians. Why can’t we ever build icebreakers like they do and power it using Nuclear power. I know we have nuclear powered Aircraft carriers, why not Nuclear powered Ice breakers.
Nuke power is especially convenient when you can just float test the spent fuel in the Arctic.
That’s why I am wondering why can’t we build Nuclear Ice Breakers like the Russians have. At least they don’t have a GAS bill to contend with their ice breakers
Nuc power brings along a whole host of problems, making it unlikely to save money in the long run and the costs are certainly higher on the front end.
The advantage it does have other than virtually unlimited range, is that it does not deposit carbon on the icecap.
But as Mork from Ork would say, “You don’t have nuk-away! Get me off this planet.”
i would think that with the size of ice breakers and the increasing enviromental concerns and regulations for shipping, not to mention lower fuel costs, that lng would be a viable alternative for a new build ice breaker. should we ever bother to build one. mean while the rest of the world is running us over on the way to the arctic. there is already talk of an lng pipeline in southern alaska for shipping lng to asia. could provide the needed supply infrastructure for the ship.
Chuck,
How much is the Gas bill for the Healy on a single arctic patrol vs a Nuclear powered Ice Breaker
If it were economically viable, we would have seen it in the commercial world. Even the Navy can’t justify it for their cruisers, destroyers. and frigates. It might also be problematic in using some foreign ports, such as those in New Zealand.
Chuck,
why would we ever pull into a New Zealand Port. It’s more like Australia Port
In the past, Christ Church, New Zealand was the primary base we used to support missions to Antarctica It is much closer to McMurdo than Australian ports. .
Chuck,
Problem here is that New Zealand is not friendly towards the US. That’s why we isolated New Zealand and only worked with Australia.
i believe it was only u.s. navy ships that were restricted from new zealand because the u.s. wouldn’t say which ships had nukes on board.
Actually I seem to remember there was an occasion when we had to cancel a cadet cruise visit to New Zealand because we would neither confirm nor deny if nuclear weapons were on the Barque Eagle.
Relations with New Zealand have gotten a lot better recently.
if you look at the last RIMPAC exercise, the Royal New Zealand Navy was barred from docking at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Instead was forced to dock at a commercial port. Relations may be getting better, but they still have that anti Nuclear policy that still bans any ships with Nuclear weapons from pulling into a New Zealand port. They know the US will still neither confirm nor deny is any US ships have nuclear weapons in them. Which is why America has been working more closely with Australia and avoiding New Zealand at all cost.