On March 13, it was announced that Rolls-Royce Submarines Ltd, based in Derby, UK, will provide nuclear reactors for Australia’s new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, as part of the AUKUS trilateral agreement between Australia, the UK, and the US.
This decision is expected to create thousands of jobs for Rolls-Royce and the UK supply chain.
Rolls-Royce Submarines has a workforce of over 4,000 people, and they design, manufacture, and provide in-service support for pressurised water reactors that power all Royal Navy submarine vessels.
The announcement reflects the company’s expertise in the nuclear sector, and its commitment to delivering innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of its customers.
Steve Carlier, President – Rolls-Royce Submarines Ltd, welcomed the news in a press release, saying:
“We are delighted to be asked to play our part in delivering this element of the AUKUS Agreement and are well prepared to support through our nuclear expertise and engineering excellence. For over 60 years we have provided the power to the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines and we are proud to be playing a critical role in helping Australia acquire their own nuclear propulsion submarine capability.
This is great news for Rolls-Royce and for the country as a whole with the creation of more UK jobs and an opportunity to showcase British innovation and expertise on the world stage.”
Find it difficult to understand why thousands of jobs will be created since the jobs would have been needed for SSNR anyway, I can understand thousands of jobs gaining additional job security with more reactors needed but that’s a different matter.
Increased rate of delivery will require additional resources to manufacture. 17 units in same timescale as 7 in previous supply cycles
Sorry, 18 units…
Fantastic win for Royces…
It just got way better, I have just been sat here listening to the Chancellor re another bit if Good News.
SMR is a go and I don’t see RR not delivering it.
Great British Nuclear announced to push for 25% of Electricity generation by 2050, Nuclear now classed “Environmentally Sustainable” so will attract massive private investment due to the Tax incentives and SMR to be cofounded 50:50 with private industry.
Happy Big Old Bunny is now hopping around in Derby.
Oh and £11 billion extra for defence over the next 5 years so up to 2.25% by 2025.
.
To call nuclear “Environmentally Sustainable” is myopic green washing.
I know it is a bit tongue in cheek, but then so are wind turbines. Yes they do not use fossil fuels to produce Electricity but just like Nuclear no one seems to know what to do with them afterwards.
Its just moved them into a different category to help encourage private investment in the same way as Wind.
And to be completely honest I am more than slightly biased.
regards from Derby
They do know what to do with nuclear waste, they have know it for decades.
I think ABC was writing about turbine blades that are the problem, not recyclable currently and those at sea need replacing every 10-15 years due to salt erosion.
They will work out what to do with the blades nearer the time. When they built the North Sea oil rigs there was no plan for decommissioning. Hopefully anyway.
What are the blades made out of? Could a reef be made with them?
Unfortunately the time is now for the now out of time existing units. Tens of thousand of blades are going into landfill in the US. At least many of the rigs were steel. The blades are made of glass/carbon fiber with a plastic resin.
Landfill it is then for now. In 1000s of years archeologists will be digging up our trash
As long as they are not breaking down creating greenhouse gasses they are fine in that hole….after all coal and oil is fine buried under the ground….it’s when you dig it up and burn it you cause a problem.
“just like Nuclear no one seems to know what to do with them afterwards.”
Yes and they are consistent about what do about it.
Leave it for the next bod to worry about.
When you look at what Finland is doing at Onkalo it is shameful. And it cost a lot less than one would think.
In what way shameful? Burying it 5-600m below ground it’s unlikely anyone is going to disturb it. Better yet use boreholes drilled 3,000-5,000m.
As technology becomes available most of the waste will be fission products, with a dangerous life of a few hundred years.
Have you actually looked at what the Fins are doing ? Its bloody mindblowing and compared that to what we are doing ?
Letting the old boats sit and rot and putting our waste into the Moon Pools at Sellafield.
Right now they are trying to figure out what the hell was stuck into them into them in the1950’s.Because we have no records.
We are one of the 3 first Nuclear nations and have done absolutely zilch about long term waste storage that’s Shameful.
So you deflect the issue. Clearly there are solutions to the problem (so nuclear waste is not shameful) but you prefer to concentrate on one countries issues. The UK had plans for dealing with high level waste but constant green pressure has thwarted any attempt to do so.
As it turns out this may be a blessing in disguise as we now have easy access to a stash of future fuel.
Look up the Advanced Fuel CANDU Reactor (AFCR) & the GE Hitachi PRISM. These reactors can burn up nuclear waste while generating electricity.
The waste isn’t shameful, the repeated failure to deal with it is.
As for easy access to future fuel there is nothing easy about reprocessing and you still have to deal with the HLW that is left over.
OK the Government is looking at areas where the local population may be amenable to having a site nearby. But we have been accumulating it for 76 years since GLEEP went critical in 1947 without a solution.
As for the Greens being mainly responsible for blocking attempts it isn’t just them but NIMBY of every description as well.
And if I were an MP there is one question I would ask the PM
”What provision is in the AUKUS agreement for the storage, reprocessing and disposal of the resulting HLW ?”.
Interesting discussion !
You would have been correct in your assertion regarding the ponds at Sellafield in the 1990’s.
I was certainly at some handwringing meetings in the 1990’s where we were discussing how to clean them up. The first issue was that they were so cloudy that you couldn’t see what was in there. As you say the records keeping was very very, very poor. Although there was a shrewd idea of what was in them. It was more the nonsense scare stories of there being jeeps and contaminated trucks dumped in there – none of which turned out to be true. There was old handling equipment in there for sure.
So the suggestion was that they basically that the water had to be slow filtered though a series of swimming pool type sand filter. Oh no, you can’t do that you might alter the equilibrium chemistry: things might go critical. Basically sit on your hands and do nothing. This idiotic naysaying discussion went on for quite a while until someone who really did understand the nuclear equilibrium chemistry basically said so what?
The next hurdle to overcome was the pile-on of people saying what if the mass of material in the sand filters went critical? The answer to that was pretty obvious – use smaller filters so it can’t happen. And actually they are not really sand filters but that was just how the discussion went.
It is tiring just thinking of all the negative nonsense that had to be waded through to start doing anything.
Anyway there has been a project ongoing for a long time IRL.
The water in the ponds is now pretty clear, albeit with sludge on the bottom of the ponds, so you can pretty much see to the bottom of them. And a lot of debris has been mechanically removed from the ponds.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/its-been-a-massive-effort-in-challenging-times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS4UvsrinCw
So actually quite a lot has been done with the historical debris there.
Similarly the waste silo at Dounray is/has also been cleaned up.
The disgrace is that the deep storage facility has never been constructed for the long term vitrified waste storage.
Agree that facility in Finland is pretty amazing work…the scale of the safety case and modelling around a future world and what they need to do is incredible….we are probably 15-20 years behind their thinking.
Damage to the environment is primarily from fossil fuels. To a large extent Nuclear doesn’t damage the environment (assuming no accidents). Also Nuclear will encompass Nuclear Fusion which, as seems likely, has the potential to provide even more power but with far less risk. Nothing is perfect or without risk especially in power generation.
Using fossil fuels does not harm the environment! CO2 is plant food not pollution.
Are you out of your mind? What about sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates, carbon monoxide even mercury? Plants need more than C)2 to live!
CO2
Just to help me out, would you mind telling me which fossil fuels produce each of the substances you mentioned. I may well be out of mind but it is not official
I think a short search on any of the available search engines will provide all of the information you require.
I am aware of search engines Ian, my point was that you threw out a broad brush criticism of ‘fossil fuels’ and named some very harmful substances, it was up to you to justify your comment, not me but I do not think you will do that? The real point I want to make is the enormous amount spent by the government on just one substance, CO2. Plants need CO2 and without it there are no plants, no green, animals that eat plants will die along with their predators and we are paying for all this to happen.
My initial response was to your statement that “ Using fossil fuels does not harm the environment! ”. I would therefore suggest it is actually you who should justify that position. It is a scientific fact that the basis if plant photosynthesis is the action of sunlight on carbon dioxide, I’m not disputing that at all. I am a hydrocarbon user, my heating is oil fuelled, my m/c uses 100 octane petrol and my car diesel, so I’m not a green advocate in that sense.
Cheers
Any combustion of any kind of fuel at elevated temperatures creates NOx gasses when combusted with air.
That is why hydrogen boilers are not the solution as you still get NOx and potentially more NOx as the burn temperature is higher than natural gas.
NOx gasses are generally very harmful.
SO2 levels depend on the sulphur content of the feedstocks. In this respect hydrogen is clean but it is very hard to get rid of *all* of the sulphur from petroleum or coal based products.
Particulates are an issue for all forms of combustion. Particularly where the feedstock contains carbon. IRL much more could be done to make domestic boilers self scrub the exhaust gases by using the condensate to scrub the flue gasses. The issue is that you need to put more of the acidic condensate down the drain and take with it the particulates. That is a balance of harms argument: where do you want the problem to be? You could mandate gas boilers to have a filter cartridge to remove the particulates but this would need to be user changeable and be electronically monitored.
My PhD is in chemistry.
Surely thats not what reducing carbon emmissions is all about …its merely just carbon they want to stop.
If they were interested in reducing Nitrogen Oxides (which would be great btw as its particularly nasty for air pollution and asthmatics etc) then they wouldn’t be promoting hydrogen power quite so much …as unless burned with pure Oxygen it will increase those levels.
If they suceed in pushing hydrogen boilers and cars as they are attempting it will merely replace one pollutant for another.
But thats not on the ‘green’ agenda is it.
Too simple idea there Mr Grizzler. Stopping or reducing carbon is a bit of a slogan really, you have to remember all of the carbon based pollutants out there, predominantly methane and all of the other hydrocarbons that effect the atmosphere. Burning hydrogen produces Dihydrogen oxide, water to you and me, no nitrogen involved there.
cheers
Well there is.
If you burn hydrogen in air there is a lot of nitrogen some of which get converted to NOx by the high burn temperatures and catalysis by metals in the combustion chamber/burner jets.
Hi SB, well, I stand corrected. Not being a chemist you see.
Cheers
Depends how much you get at once and where it ends up… salt is essential to your body to live but drink only sea water instead of fresh water and see how long it is before you become very ill….
When you burn a fuel in air, as opposed to oxygen, some of the nitrogen in that air is converted to an oxide.
Correct
Most of the civilised world is in agreement that greenhouse gases including CO2 in increasing quantities heats the planet causing a multitude of issues. This opinion is supported by facts however if you have not been pursuaded by the scientists thus far there is probably little chance of the people on the forum convincing you?
The fact that a lot of people agree about something is not relevant when trying to find the truth. Opinions are ten a penny, facts are often hard to find but in the end they are what matter. Do you have any facts you would like to offer?
When I researched US nuclear waste an amazing fact is the energy density of nuclear fuel means that nuclear plants produce immense amounts of energy with little byproduct. In fact, the entire amount of waste created in the United States since it started its nuclear industry would fill one football field, 10 yards deep!
Its encased in glass a process called vitrification is a proven and reliable technology used at U.S. and foreign defense waste processing facilities. The process converts liquid radioactive and chemical waste into a solid, stable glass, massively reducing environmental risks.
Modern plants are more efficient than earlier designs so less waste is produced so in the next 70 years the US won’t even fill another 10 yards.
That’s under ideal conditions & what we all want, but thanks for sharing Expat. What concerns me is the risk/certainty one day that all the worlds nuclear powered warships are to all of us. Warships have a nasty habit of eventually becoming casualties. Nuke powered warships getting sunk are unlikely to get careful decomisioning. That is the risk. If there’s a MAD event we’ll have other things to worry about for the few who survive, but meantime, for all the benefits of nuke propolsion, we’re playing Russian roulette with the oceans who not only provide sea food, but through evaporation & the water cycle, also the water we need to survive.
They can grown nuclear plants now as well then ?..is that in addition to genetically modified ones….
How much fossil fuel was required to make the nuclear fuel in the first place?
No more than is required to produce the materials for solar panels and wind turbines. Even less if using a reactor like the CANDU heavy water reactor (which we would have done well to install in the UK)
Vitrification was invented at Sellafield!
It very much depends on the technology used. Thorium salt reactors are apparently, an order of magnitude safer than all current designs. The following provides a good brief overview.
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/newsmajor-pros-and-cons-of-thorium-nuclear-power-reactor-6058445/
Well to be honest, it’s far better than burning hydrocarbons Ana pumping out greenhouse gasses. The biosphere can take a lot more ionising radiation with far less impact than it can manage climate change and potentially a runaway greenhouse effect ( which would kill everything). Yes it has impacts…..but it is in theory sustainable.( every isotope has a half life).
Good step in the right direction…
It is right up there with “one small step for man” IMHO.
Not sure anyone will be that happy if cost remains at 3 times higher than offshore wind.
I’m hoping RR can bring down cost with SMR but we have heard it all before. They decided to make Gen 3 reactors really big becuse it would be cheaper (it wasn’t) and now making them smaller will make the cheaper (I doubt it)
Really hope I am wrong and RR can get the cost down to £60-70Mwh like they say which is still double the price of offshore wind but still competitive especially for processing requiring heat.
Does that include the cost of the coal and gas burnt when the wind is not blowing?
What power source are you using when the Nucleur plant is down for maintenance and refueling?
I suggest having more than one would be a good idea…
Ask the French how that’s working out 😀
Extremely well. The lowest CO2 output of any European country without access to abundant hydro electric.
A tiny fraction of the time wind and solar are not producing and easily offset by other sources (hydro electric, pumped hydro, biomass) or excess nuclear capacity.
Solar only generates fifty percent of the time. Of the ~30GW of wind installed in the UK, average generation was around 8.6GW last year. How much extra wind and solar capacity do you need?
Humans are dominantly active in daylight hours…..which is why domestic level solar makes sense.
Jim, because they are small reactors, you will have perhaps 10 small reactors for every one current one. Therefore when one is in maintenance, you reduce production by 10% not 100%. They are built in a factory, so no weather issues, transported to site, and installed in a 10th of the time to build something like Hinckley Point. All info available from a simple google search
And what happens when the nucleur regulator finds a fault in the design and shuts all the same units down for a year or two well it finds the flaw. That has happened atleast half a dozen times in the last few years. In the UK with PWR 2 and AGR as well as in France with various PWR designs.
So now you also need multiple designs of reactors with sufficient capacity that you can afford to loose all power from one design set, which again jacks up the cost which is already sky high compared to offshore wind.
I’m all for nuclear but it’s very hard to justify in the UK which has vast offshore wind capability at a very low price and storage is getting cheaper all the time.
For the price of one 4 GW nuclear plant you can buy 10 gas-plants with a 20 GW capacity and use them only when the wind does not blow which is maybe 8 days a year in the UK. You can even run the turbines on Amonia derived from the spare electricity derived from the turbines. Levilised cost of Energy like this is £40 Mwh. New build nuclear is £95 MWh and that is without decommissioning and waste disposal.
Driving the cost of nuclear ownership down through investment is a smart move. It wasn’t that long ago the cost of offshore wind was far higher than nuclear or coal. What makes it cheap now is the scale and the investment.
Significant investment in nuclear regulation capacity and regulation policy improvement would also be smart.
Maybe 3 times the generation cost but wind and solar really need storage capacity to be built so base load can be provided. That’s generally not factored to the numbers. UK doesn’t have large battery factories so like vehicle batteries we’d need to import to build the battery storage capacity we need even if we did we need source lithium and cobalt. There are other storage methods like gravity batteries or pumped hydro, the latter is well proven but theyre big infrastructure so not cheap and you effectively generate electricity twice once with renewables to pump water up hill then again as it comes back down through the turbine. From defence perspective offshore
wind is the hardest to protect as its spread over large areas and vulnerable to unsophisticated attacks. RR SMR tech is home grown, compact and single solution to power generation and a good addition to the energy mix along with renewables.
Expat,
A little-known fact which isn’t widely reported (especially by the green lobby) is that on a monthly basis since last September the UK has been inaugurating consecutively the largest battery storage plants across Europe
https://i.postimg.cc/qMj1z4hs/Opera-Snapshot-2023-03-15-203223-www-woodmac-com.png
The link:
UK average demand ranges from around 26GW to 38GW, being generous, let’s say 30GW.
To meet two days of demand (not unfair for a calm winter week) would require storage of 1440GWh, or fifty six times the figure shown for the UK above.
Yes why do you think that’s a lot? Highview powers second sight in Yorkshire will store 2.5GwH using liquid air. So that’s about 500 similar sized sites across the UK. It’s not too different to any kind of small scale industrial unit that you might find thousands of across the country.
Or you could build 15 gas plants for a cost of £30 billion and just use then a few times a year. This is all massively cheaper than the cost of nuclear in the UK.
Nuclear is only going to get cheaper as numbers deployed increase and modular designs come online.
Nuclear is also capable of combined heat and power, which PV solar and wind are not, making it suitable for both power generation and industrial process/community heating.
Both wind and solar require huge excess capacity to be installed. Charging storage, be it battery or other method, involves losses, more generating capacity. Using the stored energy means even more losses. Then your panels/turbines are shot after 10 – 25 years, nuclear will last 40-80 years.
Bob,
The technology behind battery storage is new, and the capacity is growing, granted with the current tech there will never be enough to power the entire country for more than a nano second, but it will allow sensitive segments of the country to remain in action . But we live in a very exciting time regards technology, and there are many things in development which can help the human race, such as Solid state Batteries, Fusion, geo thermal (I added that, as the mining industry has developed a new plasma drill which can dig deeper ,quicker and cheaper than ever before ) I mean 40 years ago Sinclair computers were cutting edge, I built the computer I am currently on 10 years ago,, It uses a i7 chip and it is still powerful enough for anything and everything. (Saying that I will be building a new one this year using a i9 chip). Rather than looking at the glass and saying its half empty, I see it as half full.
Its not just the technology, it’s the materials required.
Danger for RR SMR, hes said rather than giving them a direct order hes opening it to international competition.
I bet he is …he didnt get his nickname for nowt you know
😂
Well he has to announce that, but just carefully re watch it and listen to what he announced, competition by end of this year, and that next year has a General Election due.
That is a very short timescale for anyone who isn’t already fully prepared to prepare a bid.
The huge Elephant in the Political back Garden is RR have already shortlisted the 3 potential SMR Factory sites and they are all constituencies they wouldn’t want to lose. He even named the MPs for 4 sites RR identified for the first 4 intended power stations.
Also there is the small matter of RR already having customers waiting for the U.K. to be the launch customer. Netherlands is just one.
Exports Dear Boy, Exports and all in an election year.
If you want a real laugh the Derby South MP has said absolutely nothing about AUKUS or SMR and she used to be Foreign Secretary.
RR is ready for the order right now, so maybe this is a way to push it into next year.
And if a foreign company wins, will they have another competition until they get it right?
Depends who the judge is ?
As long as its not Simon -Bloody -Cowell
Why not he would be guaranteed a Knighthood if he made the right choice Rrrrrrrrrrrrr
I’ve been following the development of safer nuclear energy for many many years. Thorium reactor research was going to be the answer to the safety issues. It promised to deliver a thorium salt nuclear reactor that naturally shuts down if there is a problem. No possibility of a Chernobyl runaway reactor melting down. One of the inherent safety issues with the water-cooled types. Additionally, the reactors do not readily produce by products that can be weaponised. (So I’m told.) Making it a none proliferation technology. However, in practical terms U233 is both needed to kickstart the reaction and remains viable.
Read the following and then follow your nose down the rabbit hole. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/thoriums-long-term-potential-in-nuclear-energy-new-iaea-analysis
3% by 2025 would be better. Heading for 5% by 2030 and rising.
Biden, contrary to the reporting in the US legacy media, is going to have a very difficult time getting this agreement through the US House. Especially troubling to Republicans will be the transfer of US technology to the UK which will be employed to create UK employment. Biden will have to answer why these reactors and boat components can’t be manufactured in the US, especially since the US is in the process of spending billions to expand nuclear submarine production facilities at Norfolk. The reporting would give the impression that this is a done deal. I think it’s going to be a very difficult slog.
Simple I’d think: We’re in a vital strategic alliance with our partners & Australia are free to choose whoever they deem best for each component. Weaponry & CMS will be American.
If the US suddenly decide not to sell weapons and CIS to Australia for god knows what reason I’m sure the UK would be delighted to offer its systems.
Not without US permission of transfer of their technology, they won’t. The reason the US was brought in was precisely because Australia first approached the Uk about nuclear submarines and they both realized it couldn’t be done without US permission. The UK can offer to its heart delight, but it can’t deliver without US permission. That’s reality and no amount of jingoism can overcome it.
Yes but it’s a one time deal, not a permanent authorisation requirement for the UK to allow Australia access to the reactors. It’s the entire reason for AUKUS.
I would be very surprised if any politician of either party will be happy about this. But the plain simple truth is that if they want to be able to face off with China the US can no longer do it on its own.
The FSA for the USN (Force Structure Assessment) lays out a requirement for 66 SSN/SSGN by 2050, at present they are really struggling to get anywhere near that number as they cannot build enough replacement boats for the 61 Los Angeles and 4 Ohio (SSGN) boats they built in the 70s to 90s.
The long term build plans are mainly 2 SSN PA plus 12 new SSBN and even when they finish the SSBN they seldom go up to 3 PA. The supply chain and the trained workforce was run down post 1990 and it is struggling to just tread water.
With the AUKUS agreement the US has taken a big step back and thought OOB by backing AUKUS it effectively gets its numbers via its allies stepping up to the mark.
If Australia does acquire 8 SSN and the U.K could go up to 8 (10 really would be better cost wise), then the pressure is off them.
Not only do they get 8 extra friends in the Pacific / SEA but with 10 U.K. boats they can redeploy some of theirs from 2nd Fleet and leave the Russian Northern Fleet to us and the French.
Congress may be mad but they aren’t stupid, this saves the US a fortune, gets the force size needed and the bill is shared.
As for the sharing of US technology, well unless they are stupid enough to tear up the Mutual Defence Treaty with U.K after 65 years then that will not happen. Which reminds me it needs renewing next year.
Read the below CRS report, it is pretty informative. And it answers Congressional concerns quite nicely.
Also I suspect the RAN purchase of 3 Virginias / CMS / Components / Weapons etc will help smooth the waters.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf
A CRS report is totally irrelevant. It’s written by Democrat leaning staffers and has very little sway with Republicans. You may think Congress is stupid not to accept this deal but what you think is stupid is not necessarily what Congress thinks is stupid. The UK’s importance as an ally has shrunk considerably over the last two decades and, quite frankly, the UK just doesn’t bring that much to the table anymore. The UK isn’t going to scare anyone in Congress by threatening to tear up the UK/US defense treaty. It would be the Uk shooting itself in the foot. Where else does it go? The UK just burned its bridges with the EU.
When did the UK or anyone else ever hold any sway on Congress? A big junk of the current crop of crazy’s don’t believe the USA has any sway over them either and are actively calling for succession.
The same Congress happily screwed the UK over nuclear technology in 1946 and the same Congress keeps f**king up America and its economy at most chances they get.
I would not take the actions or inactions of the US Congress as any kind of barometer for US UK relations or the perceived need for the USA of the UK. The reality is that the UK a is more important to America militarily than any time since the 19th century as America is finally faced with an existential threat by a super power it can’t overwhelm on its own and Britain now lives in strategic isolation with very little need of US security assistance for its own needs.
Suddenly Washington is realising it has very few Allie’s worth having, the UK is easily the most capable, committed and willing of these Allie’s and it’s the only one that will be adding to the security picture rather than requiring security guarantees like Japan and to a lesser extent Australia.
The US China war will be fought and won in the Indian Ocean through blockade and the UK has significant sovereign territories and basing in the region. The USA has zero sovereign territory in the region and can can only rely on Allie’s and if the ball goes up over China it may find the likes of the Philippines, Singapore, India and even Japan become very neutral very fast and find out that it has no basing options in the Indian Ocean.
Conversely the only security threat in Britain’s region can’t get a brigade 20 miles over the boarder of the poorest and worst equipped country in Europe. Britain does not need anyone’s security guarantees. It’s an island with nuclear weapons and the worlds second most capable navy in a continent surrounded by friendly disarmed nations.
Point in case Australia asked the UK for SSN’s. The UK approached the USA and 6 months later AUKUS was born.
Look at what happened in the 1980’s when the Canadians made the same request for Trafalgar class.
Spot on.
A simple question where did I say the U.K. would tear up the agreement ?
The reason why this agreement is good for everyone is that the US cannot build enough boats for itself to be able to face off against China.
The U.K. and Australia can between them leverage the existing U.K. sub technology and the T26/Hunter collaboration to fill in the gap.
Or put another way if China is screaming Blue Bloody Murder about it breaching international law should all know we are finally doing something right.
Your talking bout combat information systems, the US has already sold them to Australia for its warships and Collins class SSN’s. The UK is already building PWR3 which did have some tech transfer in it but that’s long past.
Why do you think the US would hold back CIS when it already sells them to lost of countries.
We are talking nuclear here. The UK had to bring in the US to sell it to Australia.
Daniel is hitting the nail here but skirting around the underbelly of US politics, which is common to all Senators and most Representatives, ‘what is in it for me?’. Both US political parties are driven by donations that would be regarded by most of the World, including the UK, as bribery or corruption but they are legal there as they passed the laws to make them so.
That, as Daniel alluded to, is the killer, unless there are sufficient benefits available in terms of for example political contributions or jobs/work in their constituencies, getting support will be very difficult. Take the F-35, it is a safe product because something in it is made or assembled in virtually every state. The USN is a bit different as final assembly (like Barrow) can only be by the sea but its supply chain stretches far and wide.
The AUKUS deal is interesting in terms of how it is going to meet Congress’s financial needs and therefore approval. It is a huge financial boondoggle and their cut is a re-requisite. Fortunately the timescale is so long that many there will be retired or dead before the difficult decisions are made. To them a good start has been made by selling off 3 Ohio that are heading towards end of life for real money i.e. someone else’s that can be suitably manipulated.
That the US seems to have somehow walked away from a large proportion of the ongoing work/profit opportunities leaving them to us and the Aussies is almost beyond comprehension. This is not the way the US works in its role as the boss of the Western World. But it plays well with today’s politicians in our short term PR world.
In the light of that to expect what has been announced to actually be what happens is probably naive.
Unfortunately comrade this is what democracy looks like. Easier if they could all just fall out of windows like in your country but then we would inevitably end up with one mad bastard that thinks he is a genius asking our troops to slowly Walk towards the enemies cluster munitions.
Its sad that you think that democracy is built on corruption. Not sure what country you think is mine but I’m not part of the group think around here. If its anywhere but England, you should be a bit more critical in your analysis.
As an Englisman living in Milton Keynes any chance you want to condemn this illegal invasion of Ukraine by Putin……..ha ha ha of course not as your a troll and on a Nazi leash
Err they aren’t selling Ohios to anyone they are being decommissioned due to old age. The US cannot fulfil the Australian requirement, the U.K can and everyone benefits.
OK the 3 Ohio are being leased to Aus but that is splitting hairs, there is still a lot of money.
Blimey what ever you are smoking you need to give it a rest. Or learn to read !
The AUKUS agreement says the US will sell 3 Virginia class SSN to Australia with an option for 2 more if requested. These will tide them over till their own AUKUS boats enter service.
The 4 Ohio SSGN are 40 years old, done with no life Ex left,
Sorry, you writing “Err they aren’t selling Ohios to anyone they are being decommissioned due to old age” confused me into thinking they were leased. So they are selling 3/5 to the Aussies who will use them to their retirement age and then have to decommission them. Sounds like win win for the US there.
Oh nice to see you have actually read the agreement. Well it is a win, win, win.
Not solely for the US or the UK or Australia but all 3.
The western democratic nations all benefit by being able to design, build and deploy a far larger and more coherent force of SSN than previously was possible.
As for win, win for the US well yes it is, because our Australian colleagues will buy them, use them and pay for them which frees up US resources for other things.
Daft as it sounds the big surprise is that between the UK and Australia we may well have the 2nd largest SSN fleet on earth.
Becaue the way Russia is going theirs will be a dim distant memory.
Which is a shame as given their proud History the Russian people really deserve better than the drivel their present leadership is delivering to them.
If they say no, there will be less work done in the US. They are selling 3 Virginias, maybe 50 or 60 further Virgina-style VLS and multiple CIS to the UK that they wouldn’t otherwise. And there’s possible upside (as far as the US is concerned) that the UK will become dependent on the US for submarine CIS in the future.
No we consulted with the US due to our very close relationship on Nuclear matters and the NPT.
And it makes huge sense to all 3 parties.
The RAN get SSN and compatibility with their allies.
The US gets to concentrate greater force against China and boosts the assistance it’s allies can furnish at Zilch cost.
The U.K gets to up our industrial capacity and by building a larger number for 2 Navies we may be able to afford more of our own boats.
Obviously, you get your news about Republicans from the Guardian and it shows. Green has no influence over foreign policy and her voice carries little weight in foreign policy matters. If you honestly think that the Republican foreign policy is China bad above anything else then you know very little about them. The issues of technology transfer and jobs are more important to the caucus than China. The Republicans will not subordinate every one of their major domestic concerns over China.
Great work for RR. Once a naval war occurs where SSNs are destroyed(Or nuclear propelled cariers etc) are sunk, I wonder how badly polluted the oceans will be for humanity & the entire ecosystem?
If that happens, it will be the resulting nuclear missiles that will destroy the eco system.
If a war went that far, all you would want to think about is a quick death.
Sorry if that is bit blunt.
Frank wrote:
“”I wonder how badly polluted the oceans will be for humanity & the entire ecosystem?””
That’s a very interesting question. I looked it up Russia (including the USSR) has lost 7, with the US losing 2, so there are 8 nuclear subs at the bottom of the sea. The ninth sub K-429 actually sank twice (recovered twice) and the story of its first sinking makes for a very didturbing intriguing read which illuminates everything that was wrong with the communist system regards command and control
On top of that , there have also a number of nuclear weapons lost at sea. I can’t account for the Russians but the US has lost 8
Have a read on what got dumped into the Kara and White seas by Ivan.
At least 14 reactors, some still with fuel in…
The Terrifying History of Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Graveyard (popularmechanics.com)
Quite the mess.
There is some disquiet in the Australian Government about buying British subs and would prefer to purchase American-built vessels. I don’t believe quality is an issue with British-built subs, so why the adverse comments?
The former PM who signed the AUKUS agreement thought they were buying legacy Astutes and seemed to have a rather inflated perception of Virginia capability. Another former PM has said they dont need submarines at all as China will never invade one of their primary raw material suppliers and there is an ocean between them, very naïve.
At the rate Australia goes through Prime Ministers who cares, they have all been very bottom drawer.
They make the Tory’s look good 😀
and they have about the same diplomatic finesse as the French or Chinese.
Opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one.
Lots of opinions in the Australian government 😀
Their beer swigging media and many of their politicians who do often appear drunk have a hard time grasping that UK vessel are actually better in the roles that Australia wants than US ones.
Also they are purchasing US vessels but America is just not set up to build an industry in another country like BAE or Navartis has.
Just look at General Dynamics and Ajax. No way GD would be able to set up a yard in Australia and build 8 domestic boats to Australia specifications.
I don’t think US defence contractors can spell technology transfer.
UK subs were always the best long term choice for Australia and the only option for domestic build.
The USA has the most global defense contractor network in the world; Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton. If you remember correctly, Electric Boat (US) had to teach BAE how to build nuke boats again, after BAE sold the farm to line their pockets.
They are throwing this to the UK for being the most-favored ally. It adds scale the the UK nuclear sub situation, hopefully putting more (allied) UK boats in the water. They had the same hopes for the aircraft carriers, even offering to underwrite any EMALS price increases, and the UK fell through on it with the 2012 situation.
Overall, nothing to be mad about IMHO.
If you knew what the hell you are talking about you would know that BAe took over Barrow in 1999 which was 2 years after the Astute contract was signed,
The reason BAe struggled was because the U.K. Government took its foot of the peddle and allowed there to be a 7 year design and construction gap.
The follow up to the T class design was stretched, delayed and fudged so long that the workforce at Barrow declined due to no Boats to build.
And that included the design dept, so when the orders for Astutes was finalised the entire process had to be restarted from a very low base.
So yes GD Electric Boat came into help, but is was more to do with the complexity of the design and using 3D CAD rather than anyone forgetting how to build a Submarine.
And it wasn’t only Barrow that took the fallout it was RR, British Steel, Weirs etc etc etc.
The cost of resetting it all up was so high they couldn’t afford to build enough boats.
On the other hand the idea of repeating that financial fiasco did help the case for Astute no 7 being ordered as it was very touch and go at one point if it was going to be cancelled (HMS Agamemnon). Otherwise we had yet another production gap.
Desperately hoping the 10-sub rumour will turn out to be true. Nothing would smash the feeling of decline in the navy more than an increase in heavy-weight capital ship numbers!
I would actually settle for 8 if 16 AUKUS boats were managed as an engineer led common pool for support purposes. That’s 12/13 operational between us and RAN.
Absolutely fair enough.
Can you list all the US defence contractors that have ship yards in foreign countries and are building warship domestically for a foreign partner.
I could give you a list of European contractors doing that right now if you like.
Electric boat did not teach BAE how to build submarines, if that’s the case why are British subs a completely different design from US subs. Their hull exteriors are radically different or do you think electric boat decided to do a completely different design for the UK for fun.
EB assisted in the design of Astute primarily through assisting in the use of computer design software which BAE was behind on.
Not teaching then how to build a submarine.
Spot on. The UK and US do have very different design criteria, all the way from hull design to where we put the fins and the crew size.
The clue is in the name the US build Attack boats and we build Hunter Killers, they look at our sensors and ASW capacity with envy and we do the same about their Land Attack.
Hence they now have shrouded propellors and anachoic tiles and we are fitting VLS.
But combined the 2 are complimentary we just need more of ours.
Jim, I know this bloke in the Foreign Office who says that are looking for new diplomats to work in Washington DC. I reckon you’d walk it, no bother! By the way, I’ve one too! 😄
Not sure I’m the man,
My truth may hurt 😀
It’s just a trap to muzzle you, Jim. Don’t fall for it.
No idea, given that almost all of the “British subs” are going to be built in Australia.
It’s actually the ex Government, the ex ex Government and the very ex ex ex Government.
They can prefer what they want but simple truth is the US is maxed out,
I am amazed they offered 3.
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/unmanned/article/14290861/unmanned-swarming-underwater
Navy asks Woods Hole researchers to develop swarming capabilities for unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs)March 13, 2023
This research in UUV swarming will include methods for localization, navigation, and communications for coordinated multi-UUV swarming operations.
John Keller
This is very interesting and follows on from:
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/unmanned/article/14068665/unmanned-underwater-vehicles-uuv-artificial-intelligence
Unmanned submarines seen as key to dominating the world’s oceansOct. 15, 2019
Andrew Rothon
3 seconds ago
Just been reading the details and I think everyone below has missed the interesting parts.
Its a 3 Nation SSN based on the UK SSN-R design some 70% complete.
Australia will contribute some $3.4B to UK and US industrial capabilities. The reactor will be made in the UK from a US design. The SSN’s will have common weapons both horizontal and vertical for global resupply. The combat system will be a US design.
This is good for all Three of us. Proven technology already in use and supported by 3 customers for manufacture and supported at all 3 construction yards and supported at naval bases globally.
6.3 SSN-AUKUS will incorporate US technology such as propulsion plant systems and components, a common vertical launch system and weapons. The AUKUS partners will also develop a joint combat system as an expansion of the existing US-Australian combat system. Engineers and designers in all partner countries will collaborate closely to ensure the SSN-AUKUS achieves key design milestones and meets Australian and UK delivery timeframes.
6.4 As a trilateral endeavour, SSN-AUKUS provides maximum interoperability among AUKUS partners. It will increase opportunities for trilateral collaboration in the industrial base, and will strengthen trilateral industrial capacity to the benefit of all three countries. A delivery model will need to be established to meet the trilateral partners’ requirements. SSN-AUKUS will be delivered as a joint build program constructed in Barrow-in-Furness, UK, and Adelaide, South Australia. US industry is to deliver a number of critical and specialised technologies, including propulsion technology.