[HN Gopher] USA gives South Korea green light to build nuclear s...
___________________________________________________________________
USA gives South Korea green light to build nuclear submarines
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 72 points
Date : 2025-11-15 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.navalnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.navalnews.com)
| rayiner wrote:
| Brilliant move. Giving South Korea the U.S. approval required to
| provide for its own defense, while using that to incentivize
| investment into American shipbuilding.
| echelon wrote:
| That's a genius move!
|
| We should get every country to do this.
|
| Build your nuclear subs here, in the US shipyards. We'll help
| you!
|
| We can massively expand our capacity, which will be important
| for self defense in the coming decades.
| tyre wrote:
| An interesting example of this is the US modernizations of
| its military industrial capacity by supply pre- and during
| WWI. There was intense debate in the international community
| as to whether non-warring countries could supply nations at
| war without being considered combatants.
|
| If they aren't, you can't neutralize the enemies supplies. If
| they are, those third countries are effectively part of the
| conflict.
|
| The US had to take the latter stance because it didn't have a
| strong industry to product its own weapons. If it supported
| nations from buying from non-warring parties, it would be
| shit out of luck if it had its own wars. So it received a lot
| of investment from European powers, generating jobs, economic
| growth, and the funding to expand its domestic production
| without having to take on debt or wait for a war to break
| out.
|
| Come its entry into WWI and then WWII, the US had a strong
| home base of industrial capacity for arms manufacturing.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I imagine countries would only do this begrudgingly out of
| necessity. The U.S. has positioned itself as unworthy of
| trust and respect and is basically taking the mafia
| protection approach to getting other nations to work with it.
| kakacik wrote:
| I would be very worried about any form of built in kill
| switch / degrade effectiveness based on recent F-16 fiasco
| that sobered entire Europe into massive military spending.
|
| Trust lost is trust that either never comes back or it
| takes tremendous, long term continuous effort. Not holding
| my breath.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the good news here is that embedding a kill switch into a
| nuclear sub won't work very well since they don't
| communicate with the outside world for months at a time
| mindslight wrote:
| "Military functionality license expired. Surfacing
| required to renew license. Surface Now? [Yes] / [Okay]."
| Waterluvian wrote:
| "Dive dive dive"
|
| "We can't. The updates are still updating"
| delfinom wrote:
| Well, yes but no. Hence the doomsday planes specifically
| made to communicate with deep sea subs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-6_Mercury
|
| Tl;dr attenuation of signals in water is frequency
| dependent, just like in air or walls, etc.
|
| So the plane has a 5 mile long antenna
| echelon wrote:
| Recent F-16 fiasco? I didn't see this. What happened?
| c420 wrote:
| I believe op is referencing the halting of EW support and
| software updates to Ukrainian f-16's.
|
| https://bulgarianmilitary.com/amp/2025/03/09/russian-
| media-c...
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Part of AUKUS is this.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I wouldn't call it a genius move.
|
| Just long overdue: South Korea is one of the last, staunch US
| allies that can build large ships at scale.
|
| But will bringing manufacturing to Philadelphia be a mistake?
| Will they run into the generations-steeped shipyard workers and
| steelworkers?
|
| Will American steelworkers try put one over to make themselves
| an expense, or a legit partnership to help each other?
|
| I can see this going either way; and I hope this partnership
| transcends the usual, petty partisanship.
| jltsiren wrote:
| It's more that South Korea and Japan are the last developed
| countries, where it's still economically viable to build
| cargo ships. Several European countries have robust
| shipbuilding industry, but they focus on higher-value ships
| such as cruise ships.
| farseer wrote:
| South Korea is capable enough to build nuclear submarines even if
| the US had denied them the said facilities. This saves them
| money, not having to modify their shipyards.
| echelon wrote:
| It's really great for the US to have customers. We can expand
| our shipyards again.
|
| We should go and find more customers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _South Korea is capable enough to build nuclear submarines
| even if the US had denied them the said facilities_
|
| Technically, yes. Politically, no.
|
| "To produce fuel for the submarines' naval propulsion, the
| ability to enrich uranium was required. However, this plan
| probably served two goals, since a country with enrichment
| capability can also enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels
| without significant difficulty. The fact that [former President
| Roh Moo-hyun] launched this plan less than five months after
| North Korea's [2003] withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation
| Treaty (NPT) supports the possibility that his ulterior motive
| was to acquire uranium enrichment capability in part to enable
| the future development of nuclear weapons. Ultimately, Roh had
| to abandon this plan in 2004 amid rising suspicion of South
| Korea's nuclear ambitions after the International Atomic Energy
| Agency (IAEA) discovered that South Korean scientists had
| previously conducted an unauthorized enrichment experiment"
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/will-south-koreas-nuclear-
| ambi...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| What am I missing about how hard it is to enrich uranium? We
| did it in the 40s, having a significantly less solid
| understanding of all of the physics involved. Material
| science on containers, motors, energy generation, etc have
| all been significantly improved in the intervening decades.
|
| Wikipedia says U235 is ~0.7% of earth deposits, and as little
| as 7kg may be required for a minimal nuclear device.
| Processing, 700kg of uranium does not sound insurmountable,
| even with a terribly slow and inefficient process. Just
| grinding it up and using some kind of mass spectrometer could
| trivially separate a 3Dalton mass difference.
| nemomarx wrote:
| I mean Iran is certainly managing it, so I think it's
| mostly a political will / will this get you attention and
| coup'd thing?
| tyre wrote:
| It takes a lot of centrifuges to refine the amount and,
| more importantly, the purity of fissile material. By the
| time you need them, it would take a long time to spin up
| that infrastructure and iron out the kinks.
|
| It's not a casual undertaking and other nations will know
| you're doing it. The major global powers are not interested
| in more nuclear weapons, not only to maintain their
| hegemony but also to limit the number of parties that could
| cause massive issues. Not to mention the likelihood that a
| national or political shift could mean nukes in the hands
| of those less...restrained.
|
| Plus it raises the surface area of others gaining access to
| the material or capabilities. Proliferation is bad for the
| world, generally.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > What am I missing about how hard it is to enrich uranium?
|
| The challenges are primarily geopolitical. There are
| uranium enrichment operations in a number of countries
| around the world. Weapons grade enrichment is a lot harder,
| but nothing that a sufficiently funded and motivated nation
| state couldn't achieve if they wanted to and, most
| importantly, didn't have any other countries discover it.
|
| > Processing, 700kg of uranium does not sound
| insurmountable, even with a terribly slow and inefficient
| process.
|
| You have to get enough uranium ore, process that down, then
| enrich it on a large scale. Uranium ore deposits aren't
| very uranium dense except for a few known mines, so pulling
| rocks out of the ground in another country may produce
| extremely low yields.
|
| Enrichment is a very slow process requiring a lot of stages
| because U235 and U238 are barely different, so they don't
| separate much in each stage. Everything has to work
| together and work well. Like you said it's not
| insurmountable, but by the time a country has spent years
| mining low-yield ore and building complicated many stage
| centrifuges they're likely to make a mistake that leads to
| an intelligence agency catching on.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Just grinding it up and using some kind of mass
| spectrometer could trivially separate a 3Dalton mass
| difference.
|
| Yes.
|
| But people would notice, and get upset:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron#Iraq
| wrsh07 wrote:
| The US has an incredibly strange relationship with shipbuilding.
|
| Zvi and the Cato institute both have lengthy pieces about why the
| Jones act is bad [1] [2], and whether or not you believe that has
| entrenched our shipbuilders, the US essentially manufactures no
| ships compared to South Korea and China.
|
| This naval news post says there are $5 billion in modernization
| costs for the shipyard needed for this project so it seems like
| we're still years away from a started (much less completed)
| project.
|
| [1] Nov 2024 https://thezvi.substack.com/p/repeal-the-jones-act-
| of-1920
|
| [2] June 2018 https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-
| analysis/jones-act-...
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| It is worth noting that the US and Korea have already been very
| engaged in trying to work together on ship building, mostly for
| the US, which we seem to have gotten quite slow and costly at.
|
| From the same source as this article, American HHI working with
| Korean HD HHI. No real action yet but both companies want to be
| working together. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-
| news/2025/10/hii-hosts-hd-hh...
| rurp wrote:
| Seems like a typical trump Big Announcement. No details,
| doesn't really fit with the actual state of the world, and no
| clear path to even getting these things built. I'll be
| surprised if >0 get built in Philadelphia in the next decade.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" Zvi and the Cato institute both have lengthy pieces about
| why the Jones act is bad [1] [2], and whether or not you
| believe that has entrenched our shipbuilders, the US
| essentially manufactures no ships compared to South Korea and
| China."_
|
| One issue is that Naval ships are very different from
| commercial vessels, and at least in the USA, almost no
| shipyards have shared facilities and staff between the two
| products since WWII. Interestingly, most other countries do not
| build most of their naval tonnage (destroyers and frigates) to
| the same standards that the USA does (European countries are
| notable for using commercial hulls standards for these ships).
|
| On a related note, the Odd Lots podcast had a (relatively)
| recent Jones Act debate episode, which is worth a listen if
| you're interested in the subject.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _at least in the USA, almost no shipyards have shared
| facilities and staff between the two products_
|
| Do other countries do it differently?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Maybe we can buy some of these South Korean nuclear submarines,
| park them off the coast of the US, and use them for energy. If we
| do it quick, we might be able to get nuclear power going before
| the environmentalists notice.
|
| Edit: Your downvotes only make me more powerful.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Why would we buy south korean subs for this, especially ones
| south korea is building with us navy help? we have nuclear subs
| and the us is actually pretty good at building more of them.
| It's the cheapest kind of reactor we have and doesn't get
| protested by environmentalists.
|
| The transmission from sub / ship to shore is not great I think,
| though. They're used for power during disaster recovery?
| inejge wrote:
| Your post is flippant, or you forgot the /s (Poe's law strikes
| again), but in case anyone took this seriously: using the subs
| to provide energy would be grossly uneconomical even by current
| nuclear power standards. Naval reactors are comparatively puny
| and optimized for compactness and long periods between
| refueling, which means using highly enriched fuels: very
| expensive and a proliferation concern.
| hearsathought wrote:
| Imagine if south korea needed china's permission to build nuclear
| submarines. We'd called them china's vassals and attack china for
| being bullies who deprived nations of their sovereignty.
|
| Imagine if the title was : "China Gives South Korea Green Light
| to Build Nuclear Submarines".
|
| What would the comments here be like. No doubt a lot of nonsense
| about "the ccp" this and "the ccp" that.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I will say that the "in/on US territory" piece is a very key
| detail.
|
| Like _obviously_ no matter the country, if you want to build
| weapons offshore in their territory you probably need
| permission.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > I will say that the "in/on US territory" piece is a very
| key detail.
|
| That's the point. South korea is not allowed to build nuclear
| submarines in their own territory. They lack the sovereignty
| to do it. The US won't give them permission to build one on
| their own.
|
| But you probably knew this and your comment is meant to
| distract.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| Citation needed. I am unable to find any treaty that
| prevents the RoK from building nuclear submarines on their
| own territory.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > Citation needed. I am unable to find any treaty that
| prevents the RoK from building nuclear submarines on
| their own territory.
|
| Are you being intentionally dense? Why wouldn't they be
| building it in their own territory if nobody was stopping
| them?
|
| Besides, I already replied to your other comment that
| South korea is not allowed to enrich uranium by the US.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| > Why wouldn't they be building it in their own territory
| if nobody was stopping them?
|
| Because they don't have the facilities to build a nuclear
| sub, and America does, since America has built over 200+
| nuclear submarines in the past?
|
| Building a nuclear sub, and fueling it, are two separate
| things.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| No, I am not being dense. From your continued lack of
| citations I am starting to assume there is no law
| stopping the RoK from enriching uranium (though I have
| been trying to find one). Uranium enrichment facilities
| are expensive. If you have a partner nation who is
| willing to sell you the enriched uranium that just makes
| sense. Again, it being the property of another nation,
| they have the right to judge who should have access it it
| and what they might do with it. If RoK wanted to spend a
| percentage of their GDP on enrichment facilities they
| could. They don't have an urgent reason to. Further they
| don't have any deposits of any uranium to begin with so
| they would still need to partner with another nation
| anyways, so I ask you - Why _would_ RoK want their own
| enrichment facilities?
| hearsathought wrote:
| > No, I am not being dense.
|
| Yes you are. An easy tell is "citation needed".
|
| > there is no law
|
| Another tell.
|
| > If RoK wanted to spend a percentage of their GDP on
| enrichment facilities they could
|
| And they have in the past. Guess who shut that down?
|
| > They don't have an urgent reason to.
|
| South korea is surrounded by 3 nuclear powers ( north
| korea, china, russia ) and militarily occupied by another
| nuclear power and yet, they have no urgent reason to?
| Good one.
|
| > Why would RoK want their own enrichment facilities?
|
| This is just absurd. Your questions answer themselves.
| And it's obvious you already know the answers but just
| are trying to distract.
|
| You keep googling and I'll look for the citations. Okay
| buddy?
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| > Are you being intentionally dense? Why wouldn't they be
| building it in their own territory if nobody was stopping
| them?
|
| They actually could. This has been an ongoing discussion
| in South Korean politics for years. Nuclear Submarine
| shipbuilding is a large undertaking and it requires a lot
| of security to prevent sabotage in ways that other types
| of shipbuilding just don't have to put up with. So it is
| in many ways cheaper and more secure to just rely on the
| US for nuclear shipbuilding as we already have the
| infrastructure and we are on the opposite side of the
| world from any adversaries who would have interest in
| sabotage.
|
| > Besides, I already replied to your other comment that
| South korea is not allowed to enrich uranium by the US.
|
| This is not true. There are mutual agreements that set
| the limits on enriched uranium for military purposes but
| they are flexible agreements that can be renegotiated or
| broken off as needed. The US has them with everyone
| including our allies and our adversaries. It's
| essentially just a tool to say "hey you need to discuss
| this publicly within your country first before you can
| change it". Nothing more or less.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| That's just not true? South Korean ministers have been
| discussing building nuclear submarines domestically long
| before this current agreement.
|
| And the US has an agreement with South Korea that limits
| domestic production of fissile material for military uses
| but it's a mutual agreement that we have with a bunch of
| countries (including China) and is essentially always
| renegotiable as situations change. Essentially it's just an
| explicit agreement of how much material a given country
| intends on producing for the purposes of requiring public
| political discussions domestically before ramping up
| production.
|
| That is all very much a flexible situation and the US
| doesn't have any actual power to legitimately stop South
| Korea from manufacturing domestic nuclear reactors for
| military purposes.
| osti wrote:
| That's why reading comments about geopolitics on the Internet
| is largely useless. Big news! A country's population supports
| its own country on international stage! If you go on Chinese
| social media, it'll be mostly about how awful the Americans
| are, and vice versa if you are on Reddit for example. So what
| is even the point of reading them, anywhere..
| mh- wrote:
| I think you and I are on _very_ different Reddits, if you 're
| using it as an example of pro-American social media.
|
| Fully agree that reading either for geopolitical opinions is
| useless.
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| I don't think any country has the right to demand that another
| country hands over enriched uranium and allow them to move into
| a shipyard so that they could build a nuclear sub. Of course
| you need permission from a seller to buy products and use their
| facilities. I would recommend going beyond simply reading the
| headline.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > I don't think any country has the right to demand that
| another country hands over enriched uranium and allow them to
| move into a shipyard so that they could build a nuclear sub.
|
| The US won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their
| own. Want to try again?
|
| > I would recommend going beyond simply reading the headline.
|
| Another intentional distracting comment.
| jtuple wrote:
| > The US won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their
| own. Want to try again?
|
| 190 nations have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This
| includes China, so the very US vs China premise here is
| misplaced.
|
| [The US, UK, France, Russia, China and 185 other countries]
| won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on their own
| hearsathought wrote:
| > 190 nations have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
|
| Who cares?
|
| > This includes China, so the very US vs China premise
| here is misplaced.
|
| Sure. But it wasn't china that stopped korea's and
| japan's secret nuclear programs. It was the US.
|
| > [The US, UK, France, Russia, China and 185 other
| countries] won't allow south korea to enrich uranium on
| their own
|
| Just like they prevented north korea...
|
| Your response debunks your response. It's quite
| remarkable actually.
|
| The only country that can prevent another country is the
| one militarily occupying it. China, France, Russia, UK
| and the other 185 countries don't militarily occupy south
| korea. The only reason north korea, israel, india,
| pakistan, etc were able to go nuclear is because they are
| not vassal states military occupied by a foreign power.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Who cares?_
|
| You don't understand why South Korea might care about
| nuclear proliferation?
| hearsathought wrote:
| If india doesn't care, why should south korea? India only
| has 2 nuclear powers surrounding it. South korea has 4.
| Why should korea care more than india? I'd love to hear
| your thoughts as an indian on this matter. You are my
| goto indian guru on all matters geopolitics, politics,
| economics, tech, sports ( cricket, not baseball for
| obvious reasons ), etc. I await enlightenment.
| kelipso wrote:
| The US invaded South Korea, had and still has massive influence
| on their government, has military bases there. It's just polite
| fiction to ignore the fact that South Korea is a US vassal.
| Makes US look better in the media, etc.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It's just polite fiction to ignore the fact that South
| Korea is a US vassal_
|
| Korea is an American suzerainty. Not vassal. Similar to North
| Korea:China. One of the strategic considerations in
| countering China in Taiwan is whether Japan and Korea would
| refused their territory from getting involved. That's a veto
| a vassal doesn't get.
|
| Iran under the Shah was a U.S. vassal. Same for Ghani's
| Afghanistan. (Belarus: Russia.)
| hearsathought wrote:
| > Korea is an American suzerainty. Not vassal. Similar to
| North Korea:China.
|
| That's why north korea has nukes? South Korea:US is not
| analogous to North Korea:China. Neither is Pakistan:China
| analogous to South Korea:US. If you analogy held, south
| korea would be a nuclear power.
|
| Stop commenting on things you know nothing about. Honestly,
| do you think you are an expert in every geopolitical topic?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| EDIT: Reply deleted. Troll/flamebait account.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We 'd called them china's vassals and attack china for being
| bullies who deprived nations of their sovereignty_
|
| The treaty restricting Korea is the Treaty on the Non-
| Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [1]. America is giving Seoul a
| loophole by offering to do the NPT-governed work.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-
| Proliferatio...
| hearsathought wrote:
| Can you stop with the nonsense already. It never ends with
| you.
|
| > The treaty restricting Korea is the Treaty on the Non-
| Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [1].
|
| Or maybe Korea could be like India, your native country, and
| not be part of it.
|
| > America is giving Seoul a loophole by offering to do the
| NPT-governed work.
|
| Yeah, a loophole seoul doesn't need. You act like america is
| doing korea a favor. All this does is make korea even more
| dependent on the US. Even more of a vassal.
| tyre wrote:
| America is doing South Korea a favor. It could ratchet
| sanctions (see: Iran) and ravage SK's position and economic
| power on the global stage without its sign-off.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > America is doing South Korea a favor.
|
| No. America is doing itself a favor. Not south korea.
|
| > It could ratchet sanctions (see: Iran) and ravage SK's
| position and economic power on the global stage without
| its sign-off.
|
| So you are saying that korea is not a sovereign state
| like iran but a vassal to the US. Maybe the US could
| protect korea (see: Israel) and send billions of taxpayer
| dollars to korea.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _No. America is doing itself a favor. Not south korea._
|
| You realise a deal can be both?
|
| > _you are saying that korea is not a sovereign state
| like iran but a vassal_
|
| False dichotomy. Korea is not as sovereign as the US,
| Russia or China because it's not a global nuclear power.
| Whether Seoul or Tehran are functionally more sovereign
| is an interesting question that isn't easily answered.
|
| > _Maybe the US could protect korea (see: Israel) and
| send billions of taxpayer dollars to korea_
|
| ...do you think we don 't?
| hearsathought wrote:
| > You realise a deal can be both?
|
| Realize. If you are going to pretend you are american,
| learn to spell like one.
|
| > False dichotomy.
|
| It's not a false dichotomy. Please take a few courses in
| philosophy and logic before throwing fancy terms around.
|
| > Korea is not as sovereign as the US, Russia or China
| because it's not a global nuclear power.
|
| "As sovereign". Sovereignty isn't a matter of degrees.
| It's more like being pregnant. You are or you are not.
|
| > Whether Seoul or Tehran are functionally more sovereign
| is an interesting question that isn't easily answered.
|
| It's not interesting at all because tehran isn't
| militarily occupied by a foreign power.
|
| > ...do you think we don't?
|
| "We" do? Don't think south korea has the lobbying power
| or influence that israel does. If it did, it'd have the
| enrichment facilities and nuclear weapons that israel
| has.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Or maybe Korea could be like India...and not be part of
| it_
|
| Sure. That comes with costs. Cost that may not make sense
| for Korea, which is a defense exporter globally and within
| the American-led Pacific alliance.
|
| (Operating a nuclear shipyard and supply chain is
| incredibly expensive. It's would also be a high-value
| target for Pyongynag.)
|
| > _your native country_
|
| Is this a troll account? (EDIT: 4 months old. Peeked
| through comment history. All flamebait and racism.
| Flagged.)
|
| > _a loophole seoul doesn 't need_
|
| You're using the word "need" ambiguously. It's a loophole
| Seoul benefits from. It gets the benefits of being an NPT
| signatory and alliance member. And it gets nuclear
| submarines.
|
| We can debate the costs and benefits. But Seoul wasn't
| coerced into building a nuclear submarine. Put plainly,
| it's unclear what security benefits it gets from one given
| it doesn't project into blue waters.
|
| > _You act like america is doing korea a favor_
|
| Within narrow confines, it is. Within broader confines,
| it's acting as the senior security partner. That obviously
| involves a cession of sovereignty. Same goes for Pakistan
| vis-a-vis China, or Belarus with Russia.
| hearsathought wrote:
| > Is this a troll account?
|
| If you have to ask, no. But then again, since you went
| through my comment history, you know it's not.
|
| > (EDIT: 4 months old. Peeked through comment history.
| All flamebait.)
|
| Flamebait? That's rich coming from you.
|
| > Same goes for Pakistan vis-a-vis China,
|
| Are you seriously comparing nuclear armed pakistan/china
| with south korea/US? You are so unserious that it's hard
| to take you seriously.
|
| You truly are an expert at everything. Where do you find
| the time with your nonstop posting here.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Where do you find the time with your nonstop posting_
|
| I fit it in between investing, skiing and flying. (My cat
| is already comfortable in helicopters and flying
| commercial, so I don't think it will be a big step into a
| smaller plane.)
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Is it nuclear in the sense that it has nuclear bombs or it is
| just nuclear powered?
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| Nuclear powered. i.e. No need to resurface for air (as all
| oxygen can be recycled or separated from water) and no need to
| refuel for the entire lifespan of the submarine.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| How long can they actually stay below the surface in practice
| though? I'm guessing water is filtered on the vessel, but
| food must be re-supplied constantly I'm again guessing? Maybe
| they do it like airplanes refuel in the air, rendevouz with
| another submarine and somehow transfer the resources for food
| making between then? Probably read too much Tom Clancy...
| echoangle wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite_(S103)
|
| Seems like the record is 111 days submerged.
|
| Nuclear Subs are typically pretty big so they can probably
| bring enough food to last for the entire time without
| resupply.
| trueismywork wrote:
| 3 months. There's an episode by smarter everyday about it
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I'm not a native English speaker, but I _think_ "nuclear
| submarine" implies "submarine powered by nuclear", otherwise
| they'd use "nuclear-armed" or similar. Of course, the title is
| probably ambiguous on purpose, so people click on it to try to
| figure it out.
|
| > Subsequently, the construction of Nuclear submarines marks a
| departure from past efforts, as previous South Korean submarine
| construction has focused primarily on conventionally powered
| submarines
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I'm asking because if it's just nuclear powered and doesn't
| have nuclear bombs, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Would environmental damage be a big deal if the reactor
| exploded? It seems odd that people care very much about
| nuclear power plants, but relatively little about nuclear
| submarines, which are just smaller power plants.
|
| The USS Thresher was lost at sea when it sunk below its
| test depth and imploded. I wonder if there was any damage
| whatsoever from the fallout.
| https://youtu.be/g-uJ1do3yV8?si=CLFS80oo564PKouo
|
| Also the USS Scorpion if I remember correctly.
|
| If the environmental effects don't matter, then I'm
| surprised it's ever been a big deal in the first place.
| Also slightly surprising that we don't have nuclear sub-
| sized power plants powering neighborhoods or cities.
|
| I guess one big difference is that any nuclear sub accident
| would be located far from populated areas. But has there
| been any studies of how bad the fallout from one of these
| smaller reactors could be? If it's 1/100th the size of
| Chernobyl, it seems like the maximum damage could be
| 1/100th of Chernobyl, which may or may not be a sufficient
| buffer.
|
| Someone downthread joked about using nuclear powered
| submarines to transmit electricity back to the mainland,
| but it seems plausible to build a nuclear sub sized reactor
| offshore (just the reactor, no sub) while enjoying the
| safety benefits that this class of nuclear reactor
| apparently has.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| both. nuclear powered submarines are the primary wing of
| nuclear deterrent because launching a missile from a platform
| that stays underwater for months at a time and is basically
| impossible to track is basically impossible to prevent
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