Submarines ‘need 108 PhD-level nuclear scientists a year’

Australia must train at least 108 PhD-level researchers in nuclear engineering every year to provide sufficient ‘top tier’ experts for Australia’s ­future nuclear submarines, new analysis suggests.

UNSW nuclear materials engineer Edward Obbard

Australia must train at least 108 PhD-level researchers in nuclear engineering every year to provide sufficient “top tier” experts to operate and maintain Australia’s ­future nuclear submarines, new analysis suggests.

As Anthony Albanese prepares to unveil Australia’s “optimal pathway” to acquiring nuclear submarines, UNSW Sydney nuclear materials engineer Edward Obbard said the nation needed to urgently develop its nuclear workforce through the creation of one or more large nuclear research ­institutes.

Informed by US workforce requirements, Dr Obbard found Australia would need a core of about 215 world-class nuclear experts to maintain and operate Australia’s promised eight nuclear boats, together with 2635 “mid-tier” nuclear professionals and 3010 “nuclear-aware” workers.

Each of the “top tier” experts would require a PhD and at least two decades of professional experience, but only about an eighth of PhD-level nuclear researchers were likely to attain the required level of expertise, he said.

“Nuclear subject matter experts only appear at the pinnacle of their careers,” Dr Obbard said.

“They make critical decisions about safety, operational limits, and engineering design.

“They are essential if we are to establish a design authority and safety regulator for a complex technology, like nuclear reactors.”

Dr Obbard, whose calculations do not include the workforce needed to build the subs, estimated 27 of the world-class experts would be needed to maintain and operate each of the promised submarines.

He said those required for the initial submarine were likely to have to come from overseas, as there would be insufficient time for them to be trained from scratch.

Dr Obbard said the “mid-tier” nuclear professionals required to operate and maintain the boats would need undergraduate or masters-level degrees, and an ­average 10 years of experience. “These are senior scientists, engineers, technical managers, reactor operators and reactor shift managers. Most of the submarine crew fall into this category,” he said.

“In the US, nuclear submarine crews have university-level qualifications, many of them masters level and higher, and years of experience in nuclear operations that start with work in shore-based test reactors.”

Given that only about two- thirds of engineering graduates pursue engineering careers, he said Australia would need to train 577 people in postgraduate nuclear degrees by 2028, to ensure 330 mid-tier level workers with at least a decade of experience before the first submarine was delivered.

UNSW offers the nation’s only nuclear engineering program, with 53 postgraduates at UNSW Sydney, and 74 undergraduates at UNSW Canberra.

Dr Obbard said the program could be scaled up to train up an estimated 180 graduates required each year for middle-tier roles, such as submarine crew and maintenance engineers.

But he said training the 108 subject matter experts that would be required each year would be “far more challenging … The solution must lie in the creation of one or more large, collaborating nuclear research training institutes”.

“They would serve all aspects of nuclear technology, including nuclear propulsion, but also nuclear medicine, energy, fusion, law, policy, physics, quality, safety and research methods,” he said.

“This might provide the combination of scale, excellence and diversity required for the best training, and for attracting the best graduates.”

Dr Obbard said unless the training and recruitment program was designed carefully, it would “eat into” Australia’s talent and funding pipelines for other science, technology and engineering disciplines that were critical to nat­ional security and economic competitiveness.

The Prime Minister is to travel to the US next week to make the AUKUS submarine announcement with Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.