James Kell has written an excellent and concerning article at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's (ASPI's) The Strategist, dated October 13, 2021, titled "Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines should be built in America."
The article is very good on economies possible from US mass production (more than 2 new subs per year) something Adelaide will never achieve.
Though the UK has been building nuclear subs since the 1960s the UK had/has considerable difficulties building Astute-class SSNs (see this and a 2011 Study). With no nuclear submarine building experience Australia should be prepared for worse in an Adelaide build.
James Kell comments on the extreme cost of of Virginia-class SSNs:
"After a 17,500-man-year design investment, the sail-away cost of an American-made Virginia-class submarine currently stands at $4.8 billion. Generally, the total program cost (including things like support facilities in Australia) is 1.5 to 2 times the sail-away cost. This puts the total program cost per American-built submarine between $6.7 billion and $9.6 billion. Having them made in Australia will add billions to this figure, with a current upper estimate of $14 billion per boat. Going by our recent experience with the Attack class, and observing Wright’s Law, the final figure could be well beyond this."
See James Kell's whole article.
PETE COMMENT
Although the above figures are in Australian dollars they may become US dollars after Adelaide's production costs are factored in.
"Sail-away cost" may include the cost of a totally transformed Adelaide shipyard capable of nuclear safe submarine production and extensive new nuclear safety facilities at Australia's main submarine base in south Perth.
Items not yet counted may be the cost of training 1,000s of nuclear engineer maintainers, scientists and submariners, spares, upgrades, minor and major maintenance. One or more on-shore training reactors may turn out to be essential. Decommissiong nuclear subs can coast more than building them.
Also likely needed would be a new submarine forward base on Australia's east coast. This assumes Sydneysiders will not put up with nuclear submarines at the current forward base in Sydney Harbour. Finding another east coast community happy to host a nuke sub forward base will be an interesting exercise.