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The Nuclear Navy has an extremely high bar for safety, hence no nuclear accidents. Unlike the Air Force apparently, which sometimes loses hydrogen bombs. Go Navy!

https://www.google.com/search?q=air+force+lost+hydrogen+bomb...




The US Navy has fumbled a few nuclear bombs too (from airplanes and also submarines), their impeccable safety record is for nuclear reactors specifically. They've lost two nuclear powered submarines, but neither of those was due to reactor problems.


It's harder to lose your metaphorical nuclear fuel tank than your metaphorical nuclear bullet I guess.


The nuclear navy has had numerous nuclear accidents, just like the air force. Also just like the air force they have avoided any spectacular meltdowns so far, but that doesn't mean they've been problem free.

I collected a list of publicly known ones in response to someone claiming the same previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28376137


Navy has an extremely high bar for safety according to Navy itself, but accidents sometimes get classified for a couple of decades. It happened before, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site for example.


The Hanford site is a horror show of the reality of how the US handles decommissioned nukes:

> The DOE later found water intruding into at least 14 single-shell tanks and that one of them had been leaking about 640 US gallons (2,400 l; 530 imp gal) per year into the ground since about 2010. In 2012, the DOE also discovered a leak from a double-shell tank caused by construction flaws and corrosion in the tank's bottom, and that 12 other double-shell tanks had similar construction flaws. ... Intermittent discoveries of undocumented contamination have slowed the pace and raised the cost of cleanup.

> In 2007, the Hanford site represented 60% of high-level radioactive waste by volume managed by the US Department of Energy[7] and 7–9% of all nuclear waste in the United States (the DOE manages 15% of nuclear waste in the US, with the remaining 85% being commercial spent nuclear fuel). Hanford is currently the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleanup.




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