But Britain’s submarines have rolled off the assembly line relatively slowly and have often lagged behind schedule. British submarine maker BAE Systems is also busy building dreadnought submarines to carry the country’s nuclear deterrent.
“The free capacity is very limited,” wrote Trevor Taylor, professor of defense management at the Royal United Services Institute, a research institute, in an email. “Britain cannot afford to delay its dreadnought program to divert efforts to Australia.”
Add to the complications that the UK is phasing out the PWR2 reactor that powers the Astute after officials agreed that the model would be “unacceptable in the future,” according to a 2018 audit report. The Astute is not for the next generation reactor, and this problem could make it difficult to rebuild the submarine for Australia, Taylor and other experts said.
Britain’s successor to the Astute is still on the drawing board; The government said last month it would spend three years designing it. A Navy official with the UK Department of Defense said the proposed new submarine might fit well into Australia’s schedule. Some experts were less sure.
“Waiting for the next-generation British or US attack submarine would mean a major capacity gap for Australia,” Taylor wrote in a review.
The challenge doesn’t end with building the submarines. Safeguards to protect seafarers and the population and to comply with non-proliferation obligations require a major build-up of Australia’s nuclear safety expertise.
In some parts of Barrow-in-Furness, the 67,000-inhabitant town where the British submarine shipyard is located, iodine tablets are handed out during reactor tests as a precaution against possible leaks. The Osborne shipyard in South Australia, where Mr. Morrison plans to build the nuclear submarines, is on the outskirts of Adelaide, a city of 1.4 million.
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