WEBVTT 00:00:00.340 --> 00:00:06.660 The USS Gerald R Ford and the HMS Queen Elizabeth are the latest and most modern aircraft carriers 00:00:06.660 --> 00:00:13.710 in the world. Both use the latest technology to support planes like the F-35 but why has 00:00:13.710 --> 00:00:19.219 the British carrier not followed in the footsteps of the American carriers and used nuclear 00:00:19.219 --> 00:00:25.899 to power it’s systems and what are the pro’s and cons of being nuclear or non-nuclear in 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:39.399 a modern navy. 00:00:39.399 --> 00:00:44.769 Now this video is sponsored by NordVPN and just like the latest aircraft carriers, it 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:49.489 is designed to help protect you whilst your out surfing the high seas of the internet 00:00:49.488 --> 00:00:53.979 which at times can make the wild west look like a calm and peaceful place. 00:00:53.979 --> 00:00:59.140 One of the problems I have had with other VPN’s is that once your logged in, if their 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:05.069 system is slow then your whole connection is slowed down, however when I tried NordVPN 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:11.349 I found that there was hardly any noticeable drop in speed plus you can have upto 6 devices 00:01:11.349 --> 00:01:16.449 run thru one account which is really useful in our house, because when the kids come home 00:01:16.450 --> 00:01:21.790 from school we can have 3 computers and 2 ipads and an iPhone all being used at the 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:27.969 same time and that last thing I need is a slow connection and everyone moaning and complaining 00:01:27.968 --> 00:01:31.848 about it. Just in case you not sure why you would need 00:01:31.849 --> 00:01:37.310 a VPN, basically, once you're behind a VPN its much more difficult for hackers to find 00:01:37.310 --> 00:01:43.129 your real IP address and gain control of your computer and access any potential personal 00:01:43.129 --> 00:01:48.868 data like passwords, emails, bank login’s and alike and if you on the move and using 00:01:48.868 --> 00:01:54.468 open public WiFi access point your data is also encrypted. 00:01:54.468 --> 00:02:00.168 You can also use them to disguise your real location for content that is geographically 00:02:00.168 --> 00:02:04.709 locked away from you by making you look like you’re in a different country and you can 00:02:04.709 --> 00:02:09.061 choose which country you appear to be in from the simple to use NordVPN app. 00:02:09.061 --> 00:02:16.030 And now if you go with their 3 year deal you get upto 70% off and you can get the first 00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:23.318 month free by using the coupon code “curiousdroid” at the address shown, there is even a 30 money-back 00:02:23.318 --> 00:02:29.479 guarantee so there is no excuse for not trying and with that lets it crack with the video. 00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:35.289 As the British influence and military budgets shrank after WW2 so did the size and number 00:02:35.289 --> 00:02:40.900 of its aircraft carriers in the belief that new carriers would be used as part of a larger 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:46.640 NATO task force. So the last generation of invincible class light carriers was coming 00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:53.798 in at 22,000 tonnes, Compared to the US’s Nimitz class which tip the scales at 100,000 00:02:53.799 --> 00:02:56.140 tonnes. The British carriers were built primarily 00:02:56.139 --> 00:03:01.748 for anti-submarine warfare in the cold war North Atlantic and not for projecting naval 00:03:01.748 --> 00:03:07.789 power around the world like the US ones. However, after the devastating Kosovo war 00:03:07.789 --> 00:03:13.500 of the late 1990s, Europe was seen to have done too little too late to intervene. So 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:18.780 a European Union Rapid Reaction Force was proposed that would be able to act on a global 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:25.110 level and independently of NATO and the US. As part of this 3 new large aircraft carriers 00:03:25.110 --> 00:03:30.519 would be built which would share a common design, two by Britain and one by France with 00:03:30.519 --> 00:03:34.050 other European nations making up the support group. 00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:39.671 However things didn’t quite go to plan, the French cancelled their carrier in 2013 00:03:39.670 --> 00:03:44.358 due to budget restraints and because they thought that the non-nuclear propulsion was 00:03:44.359 --> 00:03:51.050 a step backward for French technology. So the British continued alone with the HMS 00:03:51.050 --> 00:03:57.370 Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales as it was now believed that bigger was better 00:03:57.370 --> 00:04:04.580 and small carriers just couldn’t provide air superiority quickly, one of a number of 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:10.140 lessons learned from the Falklands war. These are collectively called the Queen Elizabeth 00:04:10.139 --> 00:04:17.269 Class carriers or QEC and named after a first world war super-dreadnought battleship and 00:04:17.269 --> 00:04:22.310 not the current Queen of England just in case you were wondering. 00:04:22.310 --> 00:04:28.081 Even though the QEC carriers are a bit smaller, they are still the second-largest non-US Navy 00:04:28.081 --> 00:04:36.229 warships in the world after the WW2 Yamato-class Japanese battleships, displacing 65-70,000 00:04:36.228 --> 00:04:41.829 tonnes depending on the final build. They were also to be of an adaptable design that 00:04:41.829 --> 00:04:48.120 could use either CATOBAR ~ Catapult Assisted Take-Off, Barrier Arrested Recovery or Ski 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:53.519 jumps for Short Take Off and Vertical Landing aircraft, in particular, the F-35B Lightning 00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:58.620 II joint strike fighter. When the British carriers were on the drawing 00:04:58.620 --> 00:05:04.418 board nuclear power was looked at as an option. With the right design, it can provide enough 00:05:04.418 --> 00:05:10.049 power to run the ship without refuelling for up 25 years. 00:05:10.050 --> 00:05:16.639 Land-based reactors usually produce about 1600MW, marine reactors are a few hundred 00:05:16.639 --> 00:05:21.840 MW. These reactors have to be very small yet powerful for their size to fit in the limited 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:25.859 space of a ship, even one the size of an aircraft carrier 00:05:25.860 --> 00:05:31.129 This small size means more expensive materials have to be used that are more resistant to 00:05:31.129 --> 00:05:36.769 radiation and that the neutron interaction with fissionable material before it escapes 00:05:36.769 --> 00:05:43.709 into the shielding is much less. So highly enriched weapons-grade uranium is often used, 00:05:43.709 --> 00:05:49.788 this increases the power density and extends the reactor lifetime but is much more expensive 00:05:49.788 --> 00:05:55.449 and a greater security risk. You also can't rely on gravity to drop the 00:05:55.449 --> 00:06:02.060 control rods into the reactor core to shut it down like land-based one because the pitching 00:06:02.060 --> 00:06:09.329 and rolling motion of the ship in the sea, so mechanical control systems must work flawlessly. 00:06:09.329 --> 00:06:14.889 This and extra things like the desalination of seawater to make fresh water for the cooling 00:06:14.889 --> 00:06:20.579 system, all add’s to the cost and makes it very expensive to build a nuclear-powered 00:06:20.579 --> 00:06:24.139 ship. But in recent years there has been a move 00:06:24.139 --> 00:06:29.418 against nuclear ships with some countries not allowing nuclear-armed or powered ships 00:06:29.418 --> 00:06:34.479 in their territorial waters and as these are the flagships of the country they represent 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:40.569 they are carrying both ecological and political baggage. 00:06:40.569 --> 00:06:48.080 The size of the QEC carriers also limits where they can dock and maintenance can be carried 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:55.639 out only at nuclear-certified ports. The UK has only two certified X Berths at Devonport 00:06:55.639 --> 00:07:00.680 and Faslane. Maintenance requires specialist nuclear technicians 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:06.500 and then there is the decommissioning at the end of their working lives. The US has a specialist 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:13.250 area at Puget sound for the disposal of their nuclear assets and large areas in remote locations 00:07:13.250 --> 00:07:20.129 where the remains of the reactors can be buried. The UK has still to complete the decommissioning 00:07:20.129 --> 00:07:26.060 of a single nuclear submarine. Although Britain could build nuclear carriers, 00:07:26.060 --> 00:07:32.139 all its experience is in submarines and not surface ships. The only shipyard set up for 00:07:32.139 --> 00:07:38.219 assembly of nuclear-powered ships is Rosyth which is booked up with decommissioning old 00:07:38.220 --> 00:07:43.810 nuclear subs and building new ones. It would also need to bring in a substantial number 00:07:43.810 --> 00:07:49.560 of nuclear specialists from the US or France at considerable expense as we don’t have 00:07:49.560 --> 00:07:54.408 enough in the UK. All this contrasts with the US, where the 00:07:54.408 --> 00:08:00.259 US Navy is one of the biggest and oldest nuclear operators in the world. It has a huge amount 00:08:00.259 --> 00:08:04.400 of experience that dates back to the end Manhattan project in the 1940’s. 00:08:04.399 --> 00:08:12.258 It has developed 27 different reactor designs that have been used in 219 nuclear-powered 00:08:12.259 --> 00:08:20.658 vessels and brought over 526 reactor cores into operation. It currently operates 81 nuclear-powered 00:08:20.658 --> 00:08:29.709 vessels, 11 aircraft carriers and 70 submarines. It’s clocked up over 6200 reactor years 00:08:29.709 --> 00:08:36.669 and the nuclear-powered vessels have travelled over 240 million Km without a single reactor 00:08:36.669 --> 00:08:41.620 accident and it has a safety record that is second to none. 00:08:41.620 --> 00:08:46.590 One of the major differences between the new US Ford-class carriers and the previous generation 00:08:46.590 --> 00:08:52.629 Nimitz class was the introduction of more powerful A1B reactors built by Bectel which 00:08:52.629 --> 00:08:58.519 are both smaller and simpler to operate, yet generate at least 25% more power than the 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:04.840 A1W Westinghouse built reactors in the Nimitz. The Nimitz class carriers have been in service 00:09:04.840 --> 00:09:11.790 since 1975 and in that time a lot of new technology has been developed such as the EMALS Electromagnetic 00:09:11.789 --> 00:09:18.299 Aircraft Launch System as well as many more modern systems requiring an electrical supply. 00:09:18.299 --> 00:09:24.399 There are also the near-future weapons and defence systems like rail guns, directed energy 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:30.179 weapons and dynamic armour in the pipeline all of which will require large electrical 00:09:30.179 --> 00:09:34.669 supplies, something that the Nimitz class had reached the limits of. 00:09:34.669 --> 00:09:39.240 The Ford Class carriers were designed to have at least double the electrical generating 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:44.960 capacity of anything they need now to allow for future developments. 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:49.870 The US carriers use steam-power not only to power the turbines for the propellers but 00:09:49.870 --> 00:09:55.679 also electrical generators and steam catapults to launch the planes, steam being something 00:09:55.679 --> 00:10:01.969 which the nuclear reactors produce a lot of. But all the steam plumbing creates a lot of 00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:07.340 complexity, maintenance, weight, and more manpower to operate and also determines where 00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:11.910 the reactors are placed. Whilst steam catapults have proved to be very 00:10:11.909 --> 00:10:17.769 reliable in the past they have no form of feedback control and as such can transmit 00:10:17.769 --> 00:10:23.600 very large tow forces that can stress the airframes of the planes especially lighter 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:28.800 ones which means more maintenance, cost and aircraft downtime. 00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:34.490 So for the Ford Class carriers, the EMALS Launch System was developed. This uses an 00:10:34.490 --> 00:10:40.210 electric linear motor that uses feedback to accelerate the plane smoothly depending on 00:10:40.210 --> 00:10:46.580 its weight. Its also lighter and less complex to fit than the old steam ones and with a 00:10:46.580 --> 00:10:52.320 quicker recharge time should be able to launch more sorties in the same time. 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:56.750 Something which is often talked about it is the unlimited range of nuclear-powered ships. 00:10:56.750 --> 00:11:01.889 Well, yes they do have an unlimited range but unlike a nuclear submarine which travels 00:11:01.889 --> 00:11:09.549 alone, a carrier is always accompanied by the carrier strike group of supporting warships 00:11:09.549 --> 00:11:14.490 which are often non-nuclear. The planes themselves also require aviation 00:11:14.490 --> 00:11:19.629 fuel has to be replenished by supply ships along with food, water, and ammunition if 00:11:19.629 --> 00:11:24.929 extended missions are ongoing. The Royal Navy has never operated nuclear 00:11:24.929 --> 00:11:31.669 carriers, so it has always had oilers or fuel replenishment tankers to resupply it’s aircraft 00:11:31.669 --> 00:11:35.860 carriers as part of their operation. This meant there was much less of an incentive 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:41.690 to go nuclear with the new carrier. The cost of building and maintaining nuclear 00:11:41.690 --> 00:11:48.630 is higher than running conventional oil powered carriers, even with rising fuel costs factored 00:11:48.629 --> 00:11:55.240 in. It will take about 15 years before the cost of fuel catches up extra cost of building 00:11:55.240 --> 00:12:00.820 a nuclear version and that’s without the periodic nuclear refuelling costs and the 00:12:00.820 --> 00:12:06.160 very expensive and problematic decommissioning at the end of their service life. 00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:11.319 Old conventional Aircraft carriers are often sold on to foreign powers so some of that 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:17.620 money can be recouped, nuclear ships, on the other hand, can not be sold on and become 00:12:17.620 --> 00:12:21.799 a liability. About every 25 years or so the nuclear reactors 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:26.669 on a Nimitz class carrier have to be refuelled which can take it out of service for several 00:12:26.669 --> 00:12:32.479 years and is usually combined with a major refit and cost’s billions to complete. 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:37.610 The Royal Navy has only a small number of nuclear technicians for its submarine fleet 00:12:37.610 --> 00:12:43.090 and would struggle to find new ones to look after any new nuclear carriers. 00:12:43.090 --> 00:12:48.500 So if nuclear was out what could be used in its place. The solution they opted for was 00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:56.620 Integrated electric propulsion or IEP with electric motors to drive the propellers, something 00:12:56.620 --> 00:13:02.379 which is well proven in the commercial shipping sector but still a novel feature in military 00:13:02.379 --> 00:13:10.320 ships, the new Zumwalt class destroyers in the US navy also uses this type of IEP propulsion. 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:18.170 Using a combination of two Rolls-Royce Marine Trent MT30 36MW gas turbines, basically, a 00:13:18.169 --> 00:13:25.629 Rolls Royce Trent 800 jet engine mated to a generator and four 11MW Wärtsilä diesel 00:13:25.629 --> 00:13:32.889 generators, this combined setup can supply up to 116MW of electrical power. 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:39.840 The QEC carriers have twin propellers which are each driven by two 20MW General Electric 00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:43.860 induction motors. The diesel generators provide the baseload 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:48.860 supply for normal cruising and when extra speed or power is required the gas turbines 00:13:48.860 --> 00:13:53.820 are used as well. As the entire system is electrical, the generators 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:59.330 can be anywhere on the ship that is suitable, freeing up space for other uses like aircraft 00:13:59.330 --> 00:14:03.570 hanger storage. Both the QEC carriers were designed for the 00:14:03.570 --> 00:14:09.430 EMALS launch system even though it wasn’t fitted in the end, they still enough power 00:14:09.429 --> 00:14:14.859 generation to allow it to be retro fitted at some point in the future if required. 00:14:14.860 --> 00:14:19.330 Lessons learned from the Falklands War showed that the STOVL Short Take-Off and Vertical 00:14:19.330 --> 00:14:26.170 Landing Sea Harriers on a light carrier like HMS Invincible could carry out more sorties 00:14:26.169 --> 00:14:32.360 than conventional aircraft on a larger catapult powered carrier like the Ark Royal as it would 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:37.580 have been severely limited due to the bad weather of the South Atlantic if it had been 00:14:37.580 --> 00:14:43.800 in service as it was scrapped two years earlier. Instead of using the conventional takeoff 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:50.250 F-35C that the US Navy opted for and which are suited to the larger Ford Class with the 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:57.730 EMALS launcher, the MOD opted for the F-35B STOVL version which meant the need for catapult 00:14:57.730 --> 00:15:03.639 and arresting gear was removed and echoed the Falklands experience but now with a full-sized 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:08.870 carriers, each with many more aircraft. A ski jump at the end of the runway requires 00:15:08.870 --> 00:15:13.560 nothing in the way of power or complexity compared to a catapult but achieves the same 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:19.109 result with STOVL aircraft. So, in the end, the Royal Navy ended up with 00:15:19.110 --> 00:15:24.669 two of the most modern carriers in the world but without going down the nuclear route, 00:15:24.669 --> 00:15:31.029 yes it was a cost-cutting measure but then the US defense budget is about $600M to the 00:15:31.029 --> 00:15:39.759 UK’s $50M and you could have two QEC carriers for the price of one Ford-class carrier with 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:45.220 a substantial amount of change and without all the nuclear baggage and long term costs 00:15:45.220 --> 00:15:52.330 that it entails and do a very similar job. What do you think of the latest carriers from 00:15:52.330 --> 00:15:57.800 the UK and the US, let me know in the comments, so thanks for watching and please don’t 00:15:57.799 --> 00:15:59.449 forget to subscribe, thumb up and share.