Navy Nuclear Power History

Nuclear power has been widely used aboard naval vessels since the 1950s and has been the source of propulsion for several successive classes of U.S. warships and submarines. The history of the development of the nuclear Navy is very much the legacy of Admiral Hyman Rickover. Although Rickover was not a physicist and did little of the scientific or engineering work behind creating the pressurized water reactor design, he was a brilliant project manager and leader who made the rapid development of safe nuclear power for naval vessels possible.

Hyman Rickover

The history of nuclear power in the U.S. Navy is inextricably bound up in the person of Hyman Rickover, widely known as "the Father of the Nuclear Navy." Graduating from the Naval Academy in 1922, Rickover later earned an M.S. in electrical engineering. He went into the submarine service starting in 1929. During the Second World War, he served with the Bureau of Ships as head of the Electrical Section. After the war, Rickover was sent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to serve as the deputy chief of the Navy's effort to build a nuclear power plant for ships.

USS Nautilus

Rickover eventually became the head of the U.S. Navy's efforts to build a pressurized water reactor for use on naval vessels. His leadership produced the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine in 1954. The achievement was a remarkable leap forward in terms of miniaturization, safety and stability for nuclear reactors.

Admiral Rickover

Promoted to Vice Admiral in 1958, Rickover soon came to exercise near dictatorial authority over the entire U.S. Navy nuclear program. He was particularly stringent over the selection and approval of officers for nuclear engineering service, creating a culture that many believe is responsible for the Navy's enduring nuclear accident rate of zero. Hyman Rickover was finally forced to retire in 1982 and died in 1986.

Nuclear Power in the U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy soon came to embrace nuclear power as the sole means of propulsion for its submarine fleet, abandoning diesel-electric propulsion altogether. In 1961, the Navy launched the USS Enterprise, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Nuclear propulsion is now widely used aboard America's mammoth supercarriers. The U.S. Navy also applied nuclear propulsion to a series of guided missile cruisers, but these were withdrawn from service during the "peace dividend" cutbacks following the 1991 end of the Cold War.

Safety Record and Current Operations

As of 2009, the U.S. Navy's nuclear reactors have a combined operating time of over 5,400 years without a single accident. All U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear powered, with a total of over 80 nuclear-powered vessels in service

Resources

• NRC: Pressurized Water Reactors