Navy pays a penny to get rid of carrier

[sarisataka]

Navy pays a penny to get rid of carrier
By Brad Lendon, CNN
updated 9:13 AM EDT, Fri May 9, 2014

(CNN) -- For the second time in two years, the U.S. Navy is parting with one of its aircraft carriers for a penny.
The Navy announced Thursday it's paying ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas, one cent to take the former USS Saratoga off its hands for dismantling and recycling.
See why Navy paid $3 billion for this
The warship was decommissioned in 1994. It is now at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island and is expected to be towed to Texas in the summer, the Navy said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/09/us/penny-for-an-aircraft-carrier/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Rather than pay to scrap the old ships, why can't the Navy have people bid for the rights to the scrapping?

[MineralMan]

1. Odds are they'd get no bids.

Turning an aircraft carrier into scrap metal is a very, very big job. I don't know the economic details of it, but it's likely that any profit for the recycling company is going to be marginal, at best.

[upaloopa]

2. They could make floating museums like the

Midway in San Diego.
I think the Saratoga is in too bad of shape to restore though.

[liberal N proud]

3. Pay millions to some crony to build the ship, then give it away to another crony

who will make a profit off the scrap.

Bidding wouldn't work because the crony may not win the bid.

[MineralMan]

11. I'm pretty sure you don't have any idea what you're talking about

here. Go look at the website of the company. It doesn't cost millions to build a ship. It costs billions. Getting rid of a ship costs millions. Then, there are all the hazardous materials that have to be dealt with.

You're wrong on this one, I'm afraid.

[liberal N proud]

16. So I was off by how much the cronies got

SORRY!

[RKP5637]

51. I bet it's pretty close to a 'break even' scenario on scrap 'profit "vs" cost.' I'm no expert, but

it seems the profit returns are probably marginal.

[MineralMan]

52. Very marginal, which is why there are few such

places in the US. In the third world, ship breaking is profitable, due to low labor costs and little concern for worker safety and hazardous materials handling. In the US, it's pretty much a wash in term of profitability. You're correct.

[Eleanors38]

39. In some maritime publications, ships are given away:

you tow it, it's yours. Freighters, ore haulers, and other far simpler ships. To dock worn-out ships is expensive, to say nothing of towing costs and costs to scrap. Some private companies would like nothing better than to have Sally Scrapper come take the hulks off their hands.

[RKP5637]

54. Yep, they sit there deteriorating, too costly to refit and in many cases woefully

obsolete, and then also at end-of-life for the materials as they migrate to rusted out hulks. And the owners hoping they can get rid of them before they sink at dock as the pumps try to keep them afloat.

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. One of the big problems scrapping those older vessels is the hazardous materials within.....

Things like asbestos and lead based paints.

There is a reason why the United States is not a center for shipbreaking and countries like India and Bangladesh are.

The hazardous materials mitigation costs alone are such that I would imagine damned few salvage/scrapyards large enough to handle such a ship are willing to take it on.

[HooptieWagon]

6. That is true.

There was a carrier being broken up several years ago, it bankrupted a couple scrapping companies. Besides asbestos, oils, and lead paint, theres also the problem of dismantling and scrapping the reactor, cooling lines, etc, that may have contamination.

[MineralMan]

13. The USS Saratoga is conventionally powered.

It's not a nuclear carrier. Still...the issues are large. Built in the early 1950s, there is bound to be a lot of asbestos on it. A nightmare to recycle, I'd think, and the company may be sorry they took the job on by the time it's finished.

[HooptieWagon]

15. I think it was the USS Coral Sea I was thinking of.

Scrapping it was a real mess. It was a non-nuclear WW2 vintage carrier. AFAIK, no nuclear carrier has been scrapped, only decommissioned and moth-balled. I cant even begin to imagine the problems scrapping a nuclear carrier.

[MineralMan]

19. Yeah. I don't know what they'll do with those.

A messy business.

[Eleanors38]

40. Russia scraps their merchant ships by beaching them in a region of India.

Indians swarm the ship and perform the dangerous, polluting task of breaking for pitiful wages. The ex-skipper of the Russian ship leaves by launch.

[Recursion]

42. Even India doesn't let carriers beach at Alang anymore, though

FS Clemenceau had to be sent to England eventually. (Side note: apparently the French don't use the "FS" prefix internally, they just use the ship's name...)

[hatrack]

5. Couldn't they just make an artificial reef out of it?

I think they did just that a few years back off the coast of Florida.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. They did, with the USS Oriskany.....

but the prep work on it took almost a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oriskany_(CV-34)

There's a lot involved. It isn't just a simple scuttling. They have to clean it out completely.

[hatrack]

10. Indeed yes - as noted above, lots and lots of asbestos and fuel residues and other crud

Still, the Oriskany has become pretty popular with our finned friends, per National Geographic.

[Scootaloo]

26. I wouldn't think asbestos is a big worry for critters with gills

[joshcryer]

33. Yeah, but it would be for scuba divers.

And the immediate environment.

[Scootaloo]

34. I'm not sure how

The danger of asbestos is what happens when its fibers are inhaled into the lungs. It encysts and the cells around it go haywire, triggering cancers like asbestosis and mesothelioma. It's not like radiation or something, it's a straight-u[ hysical reaction to a foreign object in the body.

If scuba divers are inhaling water with asbestos fibers in it.. .well, I honestly think asbestos is the least of their worries. Environmentally, there's not a lot of danger i can think of; asbestos would basically act like silt, which isn't GREAT, but isn't especially harmful, either.

I mean hey, i'm guessing here, i ahve no idea what asbestoes does for certain, if you have it in an underwater environment. I know that even if it COULD cause problems with gills, most of the critters involved simply don't have the lifespan for the cancers to develop.

[joshcryer]

36. Free floating debris pose a problem.

You want the thing stripped down to a metal shell.

[HooptieWagon]

8. Its really expensive.

Have to remove all pollutants and toxic materials before scuttling. On the scale of a nuclear carrier, thats really cost prohibitive if the scrap value of the metal cant offset the breaking up costs.

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Not sure if you were referencing Saratoga there....

but she was conventionally powered, not nuclear.

[MineralMan]

9. That company has created two such reefs

with ships like this. Ship breaking is a weird industry. Most is done in the third world, due to the hazardous materials, risks, and high cost of dismantling these ships. The company mentioned in the story is one of just a handful of ship breaking firms in the US, and may be the only one capable of dealing with an aircraft carrier.

Will they make money on the project? Maybe. Maybe not. The scope of the job of dismantling and recycling a ship that size is mind-boggling, really.

Those who are talking about a "giveaway" to a "crony" have no idea what this work will involve. It might result in money for the company or it might not. It will, however create jobs and keep the recycling process in the US, instead of in India or somewhere in Africa.

Finally, before turning a ship into a reef, everything that is hazardous from the ship must be removed, and that's a huge job to begin with. You can't dump a ship contaminated with stuff into the ocean to serve as an artificial reef, after all.

[Eleanors38]

41. Many ships, military tanks, and busted up concrete form reefs

off FL and TX. Great for fish spawning and scuba diving. No appliances and light vehicles as the sheet metal is crap, and quickly pulls away and washes onto beaches. And Florida is serious about its beaches.

[MohRokTah]

14. In the future they may have to take bids for the project

Lowest cost to the government takes on the salvage.

I believe we'll eventually have to pay a lot more than a penny to have this done.

[Calista241]

17. Newer ships

Newer ships will have less and less toxic material on them. Lead paint, asbestos and other materials were phased out over time. Maybe we'll have more, and less costly, artificial reefs in the future.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Not to worry. They'll hit the taxpayers for about $100bn to cover the loss.

[A HERETIC I AM]

22. By what mechanism?

They got somewhere north of 20,000 tons of steel for a penny.

Please explain how and why they could possibly bill the American taxpayer $100,000,000,000 to cover "the loss"

[jmowreader]

24. Scrap steel is only $400 per ton

It costs more than $400 to remove a ton of steel from a warship.

[A HERETIC I AM]

25. jmow, I guess I am just tired of those sorts of posts, that's all

They got it for nothing. They paid a damned penny for a 900 foot long ship. They'll make money off it. I don't agree with your assertion. It doesn't cost $400 worth of Oxy/Acetylene and labor to cut two thousands pounds of steel off a ship.

I understand that may be a simplification, but that is neither here nor there.

I am amazed at the number of posts I see on this site that make blatant statements backed up by nothing more than fantasy.

It is a "if it bleeds it leads" type thing.

"To hell with accuracy, I think this stinks for reasons I don't really fathom, therefore something untoward is going on and as a result, the taxpayer will have to spend one hundred billion dollars making someone rich, richer.

AGAIN ::::sigh:::"


It's silly, it's dumb and it makes DU look dopey.

[jmowreader]

37. The big expense in ship breaking in the US is hazmat/asbestos remediation

Where is the $100 billion figure coming from?

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. Post #18 n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Check what we pay on the "defense" budget.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

20. A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats … and Other Modern Myths!

These workers are hauling a 10,000-pound cable to a beached ship at one shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh. The photograph is part of a story at National Geographic on The Shipbreakers, which documents the dangerous working conditions and high profit margins that are business as usual in Bangladesh’s maritime demolition industry.

[A HERETIC I AM]

21. What you are looking at in that picture....

is a combination Iron ore mine and steel mill.

That is Bangladesh's steel industry. They have no other. That is how they get the raw steel to make re-bar for concrete construction projects.

I've been fascinated by this subject for years. Those men, and in many cases boys, are indeed working in one of the most dangerous worksites on the planet, and there are several of them on the Indian Ocean and around the sub-continent.

The last aircraft carrier the UK sent to be scrapped went to Alang, India if memory serves.

[Recursion]

43. Alang has turned down carriers since IIRC 2005

The Indian Supreme Court ruled in Greenpeace's favor for the French one and they haven't accepted any since. It's mostly cargo ships now. I don't think Bangladesh was ever capable of breaking down a carrier to begin with...

[sl8]

23. "Carrier disposal proves a challenge for Navy"

Carrier disposal proves a challenge for Navy:
http://www.navytimes.com/article/20120219/NEWS/202190313/Carrier-disposal-proves-challenge-Navy

...
But that could prove a real challenge, if history is any guide. Breaking up the carriers presents unique industrial and security issues, and estimates of the cost to scrap them ranges from nearly nothing — according to the Navy — to as much as a half-billion dollars per ship.

The cost will depend on the price of scrap steel; the worst-case scenario for the Navy would be $2 billion to $3 billion to make all the ships go away. But with scrap steel trading at almost historically high levels, the government's disposal costs could be far less.
...

[chrisstopher]

27. I would have paid a dollar for it.

I could dismantle it with my Leatherman.

[CatWoman]

31. ...

[chrisstopher]

45. lol

[oneofthe99]

28. I spent 9 months on that ship

[Sunlei]

29. a penny!! All Gov items should be up for open PUBLIC bid!!

[Recursion]

47. Hard to get cheaper than a penny; what would bidding do?

They took bids for how much a company would charge to dismantle the carrier. I'm assuming it was a penny rather than free because of some contracting or accounting rule that says you have to pay the company some amount of money to do work.

[Ms. Toad]

30. Only because I'm grading my 252nd legal essay in 2 weeks & in a picky mood

they didn't part with it FOR a penny - they parted with it AND a penny.

[Earth_First]

35. I bet Sea Shepard Society could have come up with more than a penny...

Probably more ship than necessary for their mission...however could you imagine?!

[Recursion]

44. If you want to see them bankrupted, sure....

Simply maintaining one (not operating it) is something like $200 million per year; actually sailing it triples that -- not counting crew salaries.

[Godhumor]

46. I work in this industry. The government got off light

As others mentioned, there is huge cost in just getting the vessel to the scraping site. There is then a huge cost associated with hazmat work. I work for a private company that asked ESCO to bid on scraping one of our ancient boats, and their bid came back asking us to pay 200k to take it off our hands. This was a public bid, and, even knowing there were other bids, they still submitted one where we paid them.

Know of what you speak before committing to outrage.

[sarisataka]

48. Actually I was asking

Because I know nothing about the economics of scrapping a ship.

It seemed to me that if there is significant profit from the scrap the navy should benefit rather than pay. As it is a risky venture this seems a good dedeal

Now I know

[Godhumor]

49. sorry, that last line wasn't directed to the op, I replied to the wrong post

My apologies.

[sarisataka]

50. De nada

Done it myself

[rug]

53. I'll give them a penny if they stop building them.