Realised that most modern submarines (and some aircraft carriers) use nuclear power, but destroyers and frigates don’t. I don’t imagine it’s a size thing, so I’m not sure what else it could be.
In: Engineering
Nuclear powered ships are incredibly expensive to operate. It conveys extensive operational advantages many others have already explained, but it comes at the cost of needing to spend extremely large amounts of money to develop those technologies to the point that you can realize the full potential of the technology, keep trained crews that can operate and maintain it safely and effectively, and to build, maintain, and refuel those platforms. This makes it an option only for those vessels where the application makes the technology mandatory because of the advantage it conveys. If even the US Navy has to be selective in how it applies the technology because of budgets, you know it’s very expensive.
Nuclear power for ships also has tremendous disadvantages in some circumstances. A nuclear powered vessel cannot just be fired up with the turn of a key, nor can it be shut down in minutes without severely impacting operational readiness. A gas turbine powered destroyer can be fired up like your car and be ready to go in minutes. It can be shut down just the same. There are other compromises that nuclear power comes with like this as well.
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