Building a giant floating city like a

modern luxury cruise ship will cost a

company about $1 billion.

Building a highly advanced, heavily

armed warship for the Navy will cost

roughly $2 billion.

But what does it cost to build a huge

block of raw steel that is designed

specifically to survive some of the

harshest, coldest, and most violently

unfriendly environments on planet Earth?

Today, we are going to look closely at

the extreme engineering, the rising

costs, and the intense global [music]

politics of the heavy icebreaker. We

will also look at why the United States

is currently facing a huge 60% cost

increase to build its newest fleet.

[music] And finally, we will see how

Russia has used its own fleet of giant

nuclear-powered ships to effectively

[music]

take over the future of worldwide trade

in the frozen north. Sea ice is not like

the simple ice cubes that you have in

your kitchen freezer. In the far north,

the Arctic sea ice is constantly

shifting.

First-year ice, which is ice that just

froze during the recent winter, might be

a few feet thick. But there is also

something called multi-year ice. This is

ice that has survived more than a few

summer melting seasons without

disappearing. Over time, this older ice

gets packed down tightly, loses its

salt, and hardens until it is almost as

tough as solid concrete. This kind of

ice can easily reach thicknesses of 10

to 15 ft.

Building a ship that can cross a sea of

ice requires a completely different way

of thinking compared to building a

normal ship. Most people assume that an

icebreaker works just like a snowplow on

the front of a truck. They think it uses

a sharp, reinforced front end to slice

through the frozen sea horizontally,

pushing the ice to the left and to the

right as it moves forward. But this is

not true. If a ship captain tried to

drive straight through 10 ft of solid

old Arctic ice with a sharp front, the

crash would stop the ship completely

dead.

Instead of cutting the ice, an

icebreaker is designed to crush the ice.

Unlike a normal ship that has a sharp,

knife-like front called the bow, a heavy

ice breaker features a blunt, rounded,

spoon-shaped bow. When the ship comes to

a thick sheet of ice, it does not try to

push straight through it. Instead, it

uses its massive forward speed and its

specially shaped front to physically

flight up and over the edge of the ice.

Once the front of the ship is resting on

top of the ice sheet, gravity takes

over. The ship uses its own massive

weight, which is often tens of thousands

of tons, to press down hard on the

frozen surface.

Ice is incredibly strong when you

squeeze it from the sides, but it is

actually quite weak when you bend it

downward. The enormous weight of the

ship snaps the ice from above, breaking

it into giant pieces that are pushed

aside and slide safely underneath the

boat. However, the science of crushing

ice like this requires very special

materials. Normal steel used in everyday

shipbuilding becomes very brittle and

fragile when the temperature drops to

50° below zero. If it gets hit hard

enough in that freezing weather, normal

steel will shatter into pieces just like

glass. Because of this, heavy ice

breakers must be built with highly

specialized steel that is designed

specifically for low temperatures. The

sides of the ship that constantly scrape

against the ice can be covered in armor

plating that is more than 2 in [music]

thick. Inside the ship, there's a very

dense frame of thick steel ribs to

absorb the terrible shock of constantly

crashing into ice.

Ice is also remarkably sticky.

>> [music]

>> The friction caused by 30,000 tons of

steel grinding against a frozen ocean is

enormous. [music]

To prevent the ship from getting stuck

in the ice like a cork stuck in a

bottle, engineers use some very clever

tricks. First, the outside of the ship

is painted with a special ultra-slippery

[music] paint. Second, many modern ice

breakers use high-pressure air bubbler

systems.

>> [music]

>> Giant air pumps blow highly pressurized

air out of holes near the bottom of the

ship. As these [music] huge air bubbles

rush up to the top, they create a

slippery layer of moving water and air

between the steel and the ice, allowing

the ship to slide forward easily.

>> [music]

>> If the ship does get wedged tightly in

the ice and cannot move forward or

backward, it has advanced water tanks

hidden inside.

>> [music]

>> Powerful pumps can quickly move hundreds

of tons of heavy water from tanks on the

left side of the ship to tanks on the

right side and then back again. This

heavy rapid shifting of water forces

[music] the entire massive ship to

violently rock back and forth,

physically shaking itself free from the

ice's grip.

To drive a giant heavy ship up on a slab

of concrete hard ice, you need pure

massive power. You do not need top

speed, you need turning power, which

engineers called torque.

>> [music]

>> Heavy icebreakers use massive diesel

engines or even nuclear reactors, but

these engines do not turn the propellers

directly. Instead, they act like giant

generators to create electricity. This

electricity powers massive electric

motors that actually turn the

propellers. This is very important

because an electric motor can provide

its maximum pushing power even when it

is turning very slowly or standing

still. If a normal diesel engine

propeller hits a giant block of

underwater ice, the engine might stall

and turn off or the metal shaft might

snap in half, but an electric motor

simply keeps pushing with unstoppable

force until the ice is chewed to pieces.

When you put all of these things

together, the special cold weather

steel, the unique spoon shape, the air

bubbles, the water tanks, and the

massive electric power, [music]

you get a machine that very few

countries in the world have the money or

the skills to build.

The United States is currently learning

how painful and expensive it is to build

these [music] ships. For many years, the

US Coast Guard has relied on a very old

and very small group of icebreakers.

Their only [music] working heavy

icebreaker is called the Polar Star and

it was finished way back in 1976.

That means the United States hasn't

built a brand new heavy icebreaker from

scratch in nearly 50 years. To fix this

dangerous problem, the US government

started a program to build three brand

new heavy icebreakers. In 2019, they

thought this would cost about 3.2

billion dollars. But a new report

released in August 2024 from the

government brought bad news. The cost to

build these three new ships is expected

to jump by 60%. Experts now think the

program will cost roughly 5.1 billion

dollars.

Why did the price go up so much? Mostly,

it's because America forgot how to build

them. Predicting the cost of a highly

specialized ship you haven't built in

decades is almost impossible. The

builders had to deal with huge price

increases for materials, changing

designs, and a lack of experienced

workers who know how to work with this

special steel. The report also noted

that simply paying for gas, regular

repairs, and the sailors to run these

three ships over their lifetime will

cost taxpayers another 12.4 billion

dollars.

Because they're struggling so much, the

United States recently signed a special

agreement called the Ice Pact with

Canada and Finland to share knowledge

and help each other build icebreakers

faster.

While the United States is struggling to

build just three of these ships, Russia

currently operates a massive fleet of

over 40 icebreakers. Most importantly,

Russia is the only country on Earth that

operates a fleet of nuclear-powered

icebreakers.

To Russia, the Arctic is not just an

empty frozen wasteland. It's a national

highway. The Russian economy makes a lot

of its money by selling energy,

specifically liquid natural gas and oil

that they pull out of the freezing

northern lands. Without a way to

transport these valuable resources

across the frozen ocean all year long,

billions of dollars would be permanently

trapped behind a wall of ice.

By using nuclear power, Russian

icebreakers can sail almost forever

without running out of fuel. A nuclear

icebreaker can drive straight into the

darkest, coldest depths of the Arctic

winter and relentlessly smash through

ice for months at a time without ever

stopping. This massive nuclear fleet

gives Russia total control over what is

called the Northern Sea Route. This is a

special shortcut across the top of the

world. Cargo ships can save a huge

amount of time, up to 40% traveling

between Europe and Asia by taking this

northern shortcut instead of going way

down south through the usual canals. But

you can't travel this dangerous icy

route safely without an icebreaker to

protect you and clear the path. Because

Russia owns the waters around this route

and because they own the only fleet

capable of keeping the ice cleared all

year, they act like a giant toll booth.

If any country or company wants to use

the shortcut to save time and money,

they have to pay Russia a large fee to

lead the way safely.

So, now you know why the world need

these icebreakers. Thanks for watching

and see you in the next video.