Collins class replacement

IMO, would be horrendously expensive with nuclear submarines for Australia. The issues are multiple: one being is that there is no domestic nuclear power plants, and to my knowledge no political will to develop domestic nuclear power. That may seem trivial at first glance, but then you have to consider acquiring training and maintenance capabilities. Nuclear power isn't really to be trifled with; it takes a certain level of skill and expertise (and with that, tradition), which is completely lacking in current Australia.

Sweden has nuclear power, but no nuclear powered submarines. Sweden has put itself in a very precarious situation with regards to its nuclear power: the Atomic Power referendum decided to remove nuclear power after 30 years. Which is supposed to be happening now. Except with all the brouhaha about coal energy, it's been postponed. The issue in Sweden is, no one foresaw a future in nuclear power, universities and technical colleges stopped providing adequate education decades ago (and no one would've applied if they had), so only an ever aging population of nuclear engineers is manning the things. Not a story for success.

Understanding and Controlling a nuclear power plant is not a trivial issue.

Just thought I'd point out that there is no country that has nuclear powered submarines, that doesn't have domestic nuclear power plants. There is a reason.

 

Oh I fully understand that nuclear power is not a trivial matter however I do disagree in your assessment that a nuclear submarine fleet requires a domestic nuclear industry. Yes a domestic industry could make the implementation of a nuclear fleet easier however with today's nuclear submarines it is not needed. Several reports have been done over the last decade into nuclear submarines and they have found that Australia could adopt a modern nuclear submarine without a domestic industry and in fact adopting a nuclear submarine could actually kick start a domestic nuclear industry.

Need to realize that in the past the main reason for a domestic industry was because the boat's had to be refueled so often and no one was willing to let another nation do it for them, But with submarines such as the Virginia class the life time of the nuclear reactor without refueling actually exceeds that of the life time of the submarine. Would not be out of question to send submarine crew's abroad for training in use of nuclear reactors. That all said any adoption of a hypothetical submarine fleet as I proposed would be long term with the Nuclear option likely being the last of the three classes started giving time for training from the nation from which the nuclear submarine is being purchased from.

So any perceived increase in cost due to lack of domestic industry is wrong, And in fact cost's could be kept down some what by upgrading the fleet bases in conjunction with the USN as Australia have port's capable of handling their nuclear asset's is in their best interest (A think tank in Washington has proposed the US station a carrier fleet at Perth).

 

Only "wrong" as in it differs from your opinion... You haven't actually provided any references, and provide only speculation as to what potentially "might be", which is a great way to find your costs escalating. For example, how much staff are you sending overseas for what duration to facilitate training? How much travel time home during this overseas deployment is allowed? The USN currently requires a Bachelor's degree for their Nuclear engineers... (Bachelor of Science in Applied Science and Technology in Nuclear Energy Technology), and which require 24 weeks of 45 hours of lectures per week, with 10 to 35 hours of required after-lecture study per week. Which must be done on site, because you're not allowed to remove any materials (even reading material) from the site. Needless to say, the academic attrition rate is quite high.

Australia has today a single submarine base capable of permanently handling the current submarine fleet. It needs more permanent bases rather than adding the cost of handling nuclear OHS to the cost. Australia really barely has the economy to continue on its current path. You want to add Nuclear into the mix?!?



IMO, Australia does not need the added cost nor hastle Nuclear-powered submarines offer. No thoughts of getting rid of disused nuclear reactive materials upon decommisioning. Australia has no need for a weapons platform to stay submerged for months on end harbouring nuclear armageddon ICBMs parked under some pack ice. It needs quiet, stealthy vessels capable of sinking an invading armada no one any where near Australia currently has today (but China or India may do so at some future date). Well, at least they're good for unobtrusively spying on others. 20 billion AUD... for 12 AIP subs. How much of this is just a prestige issue? Nearly a thousand dollars per inhabitant. Go nuke and that'll seem like peanuts.

Perhaps Australia could dump the used Nuclear subs off the coast of Somalia. I hear that is a great place to dump toxic materials. Saves a lot of OHS and environmental shennanigans back in the old home country.

The US, which has all the infrastructure and procedures in place, pays 2.7 billion USD per unit of Virginia class submarine, + 50 million USD operating costs per year (over a 30 year service life, that's another 1.5 billion USD). And that's the cheap sub. Given that without the necessary infrastructure in place, and that couldn't be shared around in a greater economy of effort (such as the USN), the operating costs for an Australian nuclear sub would be higher.