Thousands of very highly skilled people will be needed to keep Australia's fleet of nuclear-powered submarines seaworthy and effective, according to experts in nuclear technology.
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The country has nowhere near enough homegrown, world-class experts in nuclear science to do the job, they say.
"Australia is overly dependent on overseas trained workforce," the president of the Australian Academy of Science said.
Chennupati Jagadish said demand for nuclear scientists in Australia was already outstripping supply.
Estimates of Australia's needs stem from the logistics of the American nuclear fleet.
The US has 70 nuclear-powered submarines, according to Edward Obbard who leads the nuclear engineering program at the University of New South Wales.
Those 70 subs need 37,000 maintenance workers.
Accordingly, eight nuclear-powered submarines in the Royal Australian Navy would demand around 4,000 workers just to maintain them in fighting-fit condition.
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At the top of the skills pyramid would be what Dr Obbard calls "world class nuclear experts" - that's about 200 engineers and scientists of the highest calibre for the Australian program.
"They make critical decisions about safety, operational limits, and engineering design," he said.
The mid-tier would be about 2,500 nuclear professionals. At the bottom tier of the Australian pyramid would be 3,000 workers who would be what Dr Obbard calls "nuclear aware" - but even at this lowest level of expertise, there would need to be substantial training.
On top of the maintenance workers, crews of nuclear submarines need to be highly skilled, often with undergraduate degrees or higher. The American Virginia class of submarine each have a crew of just under 200, with about 130 on board at any particular voyage.
This level of skill amongst crew and even more amongst maintenance staff simply doesn't exist in anything like the required quantity in Australia, so as the country's new industry - for that's what it will be - gets into gear, training will also have to be ramped up.
Dr Obbard reckons Australia would need to train more than a hundred engineers to PhD level a year to meet the need of the submarines.
There will also no doubt be a big global recruitment drive to attract the best post-graduates to bridge the gap, but Dr Obbard fears an attempt to train nuclear engineers and scientists would draw talent from other essential areas like global warming research.
Some parts of Australia are already addressing the future needs - but from a low base.
Professor Andrew Stuchley, head of the ANU's Department of Nuclear Physics says he has only three nuclear physicists in the department, the only department of its kind in Australia. He says there are only about 12 nuclear physicists in the whole country. He reckons the UK has about five times that number.
"In the past Australia's nuclear technology workforce needs have been minimal and a lot of talented and trained people from across nuclear science have headed overseas," he said. "So it is absolutely vital we build sovereign capability in nuclear science. That's exactly what we do every day at ANU."