WEBVTT - How do aircraft carriers work? 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.840 Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuffworks dot com where 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:16.639 smart happens him Marshall Brain. Every time there's a military 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.040 crisis overseas, we hear about nuclear powered aircraft carriers heading 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.960 over to investigate what does the nuclear powered part mean. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.240 Let's say that you were to power an aircraft carrier 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.920 with gasoline. An aircraft carrier weighs about a hund thousand 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.080 tons and has engines that can generate two hundred and 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.800 eighty thousand horsepower. The ship would have to carry millions 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.040 of gallons of gas to stay at sea for any 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.640 length of time. Instead, the ship has a small nuclear 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.879 reactor on board. The reactor is like the reactor at 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.560 a nuclear power plant, but it's extremely compact. The heat 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.040 from the nuclear fuel generates steam, and the steam powers 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.080 the turbines that turn the propellers. The fuel for the 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.320 reactor is highly enriched urine um. A pound of this 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.000 material is about the size of a baseball, but it 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.600 contains the energy equivalent of about a million gallons of gas. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.960 For more on this and thousands of other topics, does 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.240 that how stuff works dot Com, And don't forget to 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.160 check out the brain stuff blog on the how Stuff 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.720 Works dot com home page. You can also follow brain 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.080 Stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff hs W. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.800 The How Stuff Works iphe app has arrived. Download it 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:28.119 today on iTunes.