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“Our AUKUS partners expect Australia to pull its own weight and develop sovereign ca- pability to operate and maintain the fleet.
“This is going to ultimately require the inte- gration of the military, industry, government and academia to create what is effectively a new sector of the economy and one that has been missing. The challenge includes building the nuclear knowledge across all elements of the enterprise, including corporate, nuclear phys- ics, engineering, legal, policy, security and hu- man resources. This needs to be occurring in government, the university sector and industry.
“A fundamental uplift is needed to develop the
nuclear mindset required to be the custodian of
this technology. While we have the expertise and
the capability what we do not yet have is the scale.
The scale is not just an order of magnitude, it is a
couple or even three orders of magnitude of where we are now.”
ESTABLISHING A NUCLEAR MINDSET
Schmidt warned that urgent action was needed now so we could be where we needed to be in a decade. This required a whole of government commitment to identify skills and resources required.
“Capable students need to be identified and incentivised to pursue careers in the skills we are talking about. Many of those roles require literally decades of training and experi- ence,” he stated.
“Nuclear is not just a bolt-on thing. It pervades all the way through,” Scott said.
AUSTRALIA’S NUCLEAR EXPERIENCE
Australia is not starting out on this journey with nil nu- clear experience. Shaun Jenkinson, CEO of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) said it and its predecessor, the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, had operated reactors for 70 years.
“The 70 years of operation is reflected in the current ca- pability of ANSTO. It is in our nuclear DNA,” he said.
“We are not new to nuclear. We have been developing our nuclear science and technology capability over 70 years. We may be small but we are sophisticated and it is a multi- faceted complex capability that we have.
“ANSTO is a trusted nuclear brand and the wider com- munity around us support what we do.”
AN INTERIM SUBMARINE?
With the new nuclear boats nearly two decades away, there’s been commentary on the possibility of acquiring an interim conventionally-powered boat to avoid a capability gap.
University of Adelaide naval architect Dr Eric Fusil said assessment of potential contenders for an interim subma- rine concluded the most suitable candidate for Australia would be the Attack-class – the same submarine Australia cancelled in moving to nuclear boats.
Fusil noted the many challenges ahead: absence of nuclear industry experience, Australia’s limited complex industrial capabilities, a track record of slow defence pro- gram delivery, absence of a plan B, no skilled workforce and no budget; but with the expectation that it will be very expensive.
What Australia does possess,” he said. “Is that tradition- al and incomparable sense of optimism (of) “No worries, she’ll be right”.” ■
ABOVE: Divers from the USN’s Naval Special Warfare Group Eight display the national ensign while underway on Virginia Class fast-attack submarine USS New Mexico (SSN 778)
“NUCLEAR IS NOT JUST A BOLT-ON THING. IT PERVADES ALL THE WAY THROUGH”
A student starting to study nuclear physics in 2025 at ANU would graduate in 2029 and if proceeding to a Master’s degree, graduate in 2030 and complete their doctorate in 2033.
“How many am I going to get – three, five, 10? You can see the scaleup we need to do,” he said.
It’s not just those with advanced skills.
Currently even the most junior Australian submarine crew member is trained to a very high standard and those on the new boats will be trained to an even higher stan- dard, fully absorbing the nuclear mindset.
For the RN, a submarine officer will have served for 16 years of sea and shore postings and ongoing training and qualifying to become useful, said Jim Scott of QinetiQ.
“Everybody is spending all their time training and requalifying and getting themselves ready. The training load is huge but that instils pretty high standards,” he said.
Scott said nuclear submarines needed strong leadership who properly understand the risks across the enterprise.
“That leadership has to be highly technically competent. There is no room for generalists,” he said.
The USN also imposes very high standards for its sub- marine crews, a legacy of Admiral Hyman Rickover who oversaw the introduction of the world’s first nuclear pow- ered vessel, submarine USS Nautilus.
As the US supplied the initial nuclear technology to the RN, Rickover’s DNA also infuses the British nuclear enterprise.
USNAVY