Alternatives
In practice most reserve ships rapidly become obsolete and are scrapped, or used for experiments or target practice, or are sold to other nations (and occasionally to private companies for civilian conversion), or become museum ships or artificial reefs.
Exporting the vessels for shipbreaking or dismantling are alternatives to reserve fleets. More recently, the U.S. Navy has established a program to allow ships such as Oriskany to be sunk in selected locations to create artificial reefs.
Recycling is another option, as in the case of the NDRF, the ships of which are set to be stripped of their paint, cut into pieces, and then recycled.
Steel from pre-nuclear age ships either mothballed or sunk and raised, called low-background steel, is used in experimental physics when the experiment requires shielding material which is itself only extremely weakly radioactive, emitting less than present-day background radiation; materials which were manufactured after atmospheric nuclear explosions had taken place reflect the higher ambient level of radioactivity that fallout has caused.
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Famous quotes containing the word alternatives:
“Clearly, society has a tremendous stake in insisting on a woman’s natural fitness for the career of mother: the alternatives are all too expensive.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)
“The literal alternatives to [abortion] are suicide, motherhood, and, some would add, madness. Consequently, there is some confusion, discomfort, and cynicism greeting efforts to “find” or “emphasize” or “identify” alternatives to abortion.”
—Connie J. Downey (b. 1934)
“The last alternatives they face
Of face, without the life to save,
Being from all salvation weaned
A stag charged both at heel and head:
Who would come back is turned a fiend
Instructed by the fiery dead.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)