The Congressional Research Service has once again updated their report on the Polar Security Cutter. You can see the whole report here. I have reproduced the one page summary below. The entire report is a 66 page pdf.
Summary
The Coast Guard Polar Security Cutter (PSC) program is a program to acquire three new PSCs (i.e., heavy polar icebreakers), to be followed years from now by the acquisition of up to three new medium polar icebreakers. The PSC program has received a total of $1,169.6 million (i.e., about $1.2 billion) in procurement funding through FY2020, including $135 million in FY2020, which was $100 million more than the $35 million that the Coast Guard had requested for FY2020. With the funding it has received through FY2020, the first PSC is now fully funded and the second PSC has received initial funding.
The Coast Guard’s proposed FY2021 budget requests $555 million in procurement funding for the PSC program. It also proposes a rescission of $70 million in FY2020 funding that Congress had provided for the procurement of long lead time materials (LLTM) for a 12th National Security Cutter (NSC), with the intent of reprogramming that funding to the PSC program. The Coast Guard states that its proposed FY2021 budget, if approved by Congress, would fully fund the second PSC.
The Coast Guard estimates the total procurement costs of the three PSCs as $1,039 million (i.e., about $1.0 billion) for the first ship, $792 million for the second ship, and $788 million for the third ship, for a combined estimated cost of $2,619 million (i.e., about $2.6 billion). Within those figures, the shipbuilder’s portion of the total procurement cost is $746 million for the first ship, $544 million for the second ship, and $535 million for the third ship, for a combined estimated shipbuilder’s cost of $1,825 million (i.e., about $1.8 billion).
On April 23, 2019, the Coast Guard-Navy Integrated Program Office for the PSC program awarded a $745.9 million fixed-price, incentive-firm contract for the detail design and construction (DD&C) of the first PSC to VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, MS, a shipyard owned by Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering. VT Halter was the leader of one of three industry teams that competed for the DD&C contract. The first PSC is scheduled to begin construction in 2021 and be delivered in 2024, though the DD&C contract includes financial incentives for earlier delivery.
The DD&C contract includes options for building the second and third PSCs. If these options are exercised, the total value of the contract would increase to $1,942.8 million (i.e., about $1.9 billion). The figures of $745.9 million and $1,942.8 million cover only the shipbuilder’s costs; they do not include the cost of government-furnished equipment (GFE), which is equipment for the ships that the government purchases and then provides to the shipbuilder for incorporation into the ship, or government program-management costs. When GFE and government program management costs are included, the total estimated procurement cost of the first PSC is between $925 million and $940 million, and the total estimated procurement cost of the three-ship PSC program is about $2.95 billion.
The operational U.S. polar icebreaking fleet currently consists of one heavy polar icebreaker, Polar Star, and one medium polar icebreaker, Healy. In addition to Polar Star, the Coast Guard has a second heavy polar icebreaker, Polar Sea. Polar Sea, however, suffered an engine casualty in June 2010 and has been nonoperational since then. Polar Star and Polar Sea entered service in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and are now well beyond their originally intended 30-year service lives. The Coast Guard plans to extend the service life of Polar Star until the delivery of at least the second PSC. The Coast Guard is using Polar Sea as a source of spare parts for keeping Polar Star operational.
Trump’s latest remark about future US icebreakers may be of interest to you:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-southcom-enhanced-counternarcotics-operations/
“We’ve approved the two new state-of-the-art national security cutters and two polar security cutters for the United States Coast Guard, and so much other equipment, including — we have, under construction right now, the largest icebreaker in the world. And we’re going to be trying to get, if we can, an extra 10 icebreakers. We only have one. Russia has 40; we have one. So we will have 2, but we think we’ll have 10 because we’re trying to do a deal with a certain place that has a lot of icebreakers, and we’re seeing if we can make a really good deal where you can have them very fast. You know about that. We’re working on it, and I think we can surprise you — at a very good price, which will be nice. Much cheaper than the one we’re building, and that’s also nice. You could do about five of them.”
It’s difficult to say what, if anything, that actually means. However, the June memo called for looking into e.g. leasing icebreakers.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-safeguarding-u-s-national-interests-arctic-antarctic-regions/
Does anyone know if it was considered to use nuclear power for these ships, and since not, what was the reasons for that?
I don’t think it was even considered. The Coast Guard considered nuclear power for icebreakers back in the ’60s but decided against it then.
There are a whole series of problems that go along with nuclear power. Even the Navy has stopped using it for everything except aircraft carriers and submarines.
You have to have training program and career path. Not only for the nuclear reactor but for a steam plant as well. There would be too few ships in the Coast Guard to support a career path.
There is the problem of dealing with the waste and scrapping when the ship’s life is over.
The Russians are a bit more cavalier about radiation than the US is.
An interesting short take on a possible new configuration for nuclear power applicable to ships. https://www.marinelog.com/technology/are-atomic-batteries-the-path-to-shipping-decarbonization/
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