Comment by embedding-shape
10 hours ago
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
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.
They mean nuclear-powered submarines (some of those are nuclear armed, but that's mostly unrelated).
It's a very big deal because nuclear-powered submarines are very powerful weapons. Subs are about stealth, and other subs must surface regularly (daily?), greatly limiting their ability to hide. Nuclear-powered subs can stay submerged for many months and can be almost impossible to detect. They are, in a sense, unstoppable weapons.
And it's a very big deal because, as of five years ago, the US only shared this very difficult technology with one country (afaik), the UK. It is among the US's most valuable military secrets. The Biden administration shared it with Australia, apparently to cement the bond with Australia as a counter to China (Australia will require many years to develop the shipyards and capability to build their own nuclear-powered subs.)
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.
Of course there will be fallout, but much less severe than a meltdown on land. Water is extremely effective in containing radiation, and the ocean is so huge it will be dilutet to neligible amount very quickly.
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