The U.S. Navy has selected the Commercial Dismantlement option to dispose of the decommissioned USS Enterprise, including its defueled reactor plants, and dispose of low-level radiological waste and other hazardous waste at authorized commercial or Department of Energy (DOE) waste disposal facilities.
The Navy selected this option due to its ability to safely dispose of the ship and hazardous materials in approximately five years, with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, and executed at approximately half the cost to the taxpayer as compared with other alternatives.
The USS Enterprise was decommissioned in 2017 after over 50 years of service and the nuclear fuel has been removed from its eight reactor plants. The ship is currently being stored at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
The Navy will contract with commercial industry to dismantle the ship and dispose of the reactor plant components via several hundred shipments to authorized waste disposal sites.
