France's Naval Nuclear Worker Shortage: No Barracudas for RAN

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 nuclear submarine 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.”

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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.