The surprise announcement of the tripartite AUKUS agreement in September 2021 heralded the collaboration on four areas of technology important to national security – cyber, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and undersea – and the sharing of nuclear propulsion information to enable Australia to acquire nuclear powered submarines.
The audience will hear of the historical development of the US and UK nuclear propulsion technology and engineering domain in both standards for processes and materials and also the workforce, civilian and uniform, that continues this tradition today. The implications for Australia to adopt the current practices of the US and UK and the education, training, qualification and licensing of the Australian workforce will be raised for early consideration by the engineering profession.
The father of nuclear submarines, Admiral Hyman Rickover US Navy, insisted on unprecedented standards of safety and attention to engineering processes and material. This established a tradition that has been continued to this day in both the US Navy and the UK Royal Navy, the only previous recipient of US nuclear propulsion technology. Australia must follow this same exemplary tradition, and this seminar is to raise some of the implications for the defence engineering community.
Speaker
Captain Christopher Skinner RAN (retired) CPEng MIEAust CPEng APEC Engineer IntPE(Aus)
Editor, Nuclear Propulsion Roadmap for Australia
Christopher Skinner served thirty years in the Royal Australian Navy as a Weapons and Electrical Engineering Officer in six surface warships in the South East Asian Treaty Organisation, the Vietnam War and surveillance of the North West Indian Ocean. Shore postings included the Defence Research Centre, Salisbury SA; seconded to the US Naval Sea Systems Command to manage trials on the lead ship of a joint frigate project, and the initial project director for the ANZAC frigate program of ten ships for Australia and New Zealand.
More recently he has become especially interested in submarine matters. He helped found the Submarine Science, Technology and Engineering Conference series of the Submarine Institute of Australia, and more recently focussed on nuclear propulsion for Australia’s next generation of submarines.
He has recently taken on the role of Secretary of Sydney Division Nuclear Engineering Panel.
