Hello,
" ... Aside from attack capabilities, it is able to sit in waters off the coast undetected, delivering the UK's special forces where needed or even listening to mobile phone conversations. ..."
Sorry, but this somehow made me laugh.
I think she is running on Diesel judging from the exhaust fumes, most probably to keep up electricity for board systems and cooling pumps for the - most probably shut-down - reactor. Even a scrammed reactor will take some time to cool down.
From bubblehead nuke:
" ...
There is NO SHIELDING on the side of the boats. There is SOME shielding on the top of the reactor compartment so you can walk topside at very low power levels, but NONE on the sides. As far as they were out of the water, they would have a radiological consideration to think of. There are also other operational aspects to consider. I know on a 688, we would have been shut down if that high and dry. ..."
This is why a always have to laugh at those official statements like
"
there was no radioactivity leaking out".
What the hell do they mean ? That no radiating material itself leaked out ? This would be a major disaster.
But the reactor is radiating all the time, only that there is a lot of seawater around it which buffers most of it, although not very nice towards mother nature even when all works as it should.
The cooling water of the reactor's inner cooling system is certainly radioactive, as well as all the tubes, heat exchangers, steel and metal around becomes radioactive, when exposed to nuclear radiation for a time. I really do not even want to know what is going on in Murmansk and Severodvinsk with all those laid off and rusting boats. Ah wait, they cut out whole segments of some subs and sunk them near the coast of Novaja Semlja - immediately before leasing out the region to norvegian fishing trawlers. Nuclear propulsion has never been a "clean" technology, by the real meaning of the word.
Greetings,
Catfish