A France wide lack of nuclear workers foils claims France could deliver Barracuda SSNs to Australia quickly and easily – outside of the likely delay: 2050 or later (see my previous article).
Also Barracudas lack all
important VLS. Only VLS can launch ever larger diameter future longer range
hypersonic missiles for land attack. Such missiles would act as a partial
deterrent against China.
On nuclear workers see the
French source “France’s struggle to deliver a second nuclear era” by Sarah
White in Saint-Marcel (France) at the Financial Times APRIL 23 2023
at https://www.ft.com/content/d23b14ae-2c4e-458c-af8a-22692119f786 which
includes:
“France, which employs
some 220,000 people in the nuclear industry, needs to rebuild a deep bench of
qualified workers for its new nuclear drive. Among them will be highly trained
welders like Geoffray and his colleagues — EDF estimates France will need double
the 500 it has today by 2030. At the Hefaïs welding school launched last year
by the company and other manufacturers near Cherbourg, on the northern coast
close to France’s nuclearsubmarine shipyards, the complexities of even that task are apparent.
After nine months of
training there, including with headsets on virtual equipment, they can qualify
for a first job, says Corentin Lelièvre, the school’s director. But it can take
five to seven years of experience and repeat training before they are entrusted
with the most intricate tasks.
Those can require
developing a quasi-acrobatic skill of being able to keep a steady hand while
working upside down, or using a mirror in cramped corners of a reactor circuit
to guide the weld — a one-shot operation that workers can’t go back on once
it’s started. It also involves learning to work safely in a radioactive
environment, and in a post-Fukushima world, how to grapple with extra layers of
documentation.”
++++++++++++
France’s future “PA-NG” nuclear aircraft carrier + its two future K22 reactors are two more
major nuclear projects confronting France’s naval nuclear worker shortage.