Rear Adm. James Downey, special assistant to the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said the service has created a new office to inactivate and dismantle nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
The new office was formed in the past two to three months after the Navy decided to push through with its plan to dismantle the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) nuclear carrier.
“That [office] will take on the final disposal of Enterprise, but it’s setting it up for Nimitz and then for Ford,” Downey said at an event Wednesday.
“So in those programs of record … we just stood up a program office that has about 100 years of work … If we execute those programs of record and they perform to the schedule, [the office] has a century of work ahead of them,” he added.
Downey noted that disposal efforts associated with the nuclear-powered ships account for billions of dollars in additional work and hinted at the opportunity for future industry involvement in the dismantlement process.
