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Comment by twic | Hacker News Reader

> Moving each ship cost about $1 million and involved a 45-day trip behind a seagoing tug. In August, the last of the scrapped ships were hauled away to Brownsville, Texas, where they are broken down and recycled.

I assume via the Panama Canal! Is there really nowhere on the west coast they could have gone?

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Most commercial shipbreakers are in Asia. India and Bangladesh used to have the lion's share, but it's an industry that shifts with economic tides. Brownsville, TX is the only breaker yard in the United States.

They break (nuclear) ships in Bremerton. When I was stationed there I watched them pull apart a few subs and a boat.

I too was stationed in Bremerton! PSNS docks are in extremely high demand, since there aren't that many (on the West Coast, in the US, anywhere) that can work on nuclear-powered ships.

They also aren't equipped for traditional shipbreaking at scale: recycling the hull, recovering the steel, &c.

Have they upgraded their facilities to handle dangerous substances? I remember the French had to find a different place to scrap their warship because the public said thousands of poor people with acetylene torches swarming the hull at low tide couldn't handle asbesthos properly.

No pesky environmental regulations and lots of cheap disposable labour in Bangladesh.

I presume port space on the west coast is in high demand for receiving goods from Asia. Also, if I were proposing to tear apart a ship, I'd rather deal with the EPA in Texas than any of the west coast states.

I guess there aren't that many ships broken down to support a lot of locations.

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