Who will keep our submarine reactors safe?

Whether it’s a good idea or not, the decision has been made. We will be acquiring nuclear submarines. An important question follows; who will be responsible for keeping the reactors safe? Rex Patrick examines the issue after new information was released by Government under FOI.

Thus far, the topic of nuclear safety has barely featured in public discussion about the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program.

Government talking points on nuclear submarine safety issues are brief, merely noting that “The United Kingdom and the United States have set and maintained an exemplary safety record operating their submarine nuclear reactors.”

Australia will ensure it replicates that safety record by leveraging both countries’ decades of experience as stewards of this technology.

Letter and minutes obtained from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) under Freedom of Information shows that there is a debate raging behind closed Government doors.

But that’s not good enough; that’s not where the debate should be happening.

As Prime Minister Albanese announces his AUKUS nuclear submarine plans later this month, Australians need to be watching closely and asking hard questions about the nuclear safety framework that will accompany the project.

Because when it comes to nuclear reactors, if corners are cut and an accident happens, the consequences can be beyond catastrophic.

Independence of regulations

It’s well-established that self-regulation is fraught with danger. Regulators must be independent from those being regulated.

Nowhere could that principle be more important than when the subject is nuclear reactors.

There must be statutory independence from political interference, strong independence from the Defence Department (as operators and first responders) and from the other Government agencies and industrial entities that will support the nuclear capability and provide emergency responses.

Australia’s peak nuclear and radiation safety advisory body, the Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council (RHSAC), wrote to ARPANSA last October calling for strong independence to be part of the program. To underline the need for that independence, the RHSAC pointed out that:

some of the more significant global nuclear and radiation incidents have arisen from inadequate separation of responsibilities from regulatory capture.

But the likelihood is that this isn’t going to happen. The Defence Department is understood to be keen for nuclear regulatory oversight to be encapsulated in a security cocoon and kept nicely under its control.

Alarm bells should be ringing.

The last thing we can accept/afford is the Defence Department, under huge pressure to first deliver the $170 billion capability and with a history of poor project planning and execution, being the Regulator.

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Project secrecy

The only obvious feature of the submarine project so far is its secrecy. Almost the entirety of the Federal Government’s AUKUS decision making has been shrouded in it.

Ironically, even the FOI that was used to inform the themes in this article illustrates the point. ARPANSA redacted little of the documentation it owned, but Defence took to their documents with black paint and a paint roller.

The RHSAC has warned the government that “national security” must not be allowed to mask inadequate radiation safety protection or inhibit transparency on matters of public safety.

Our Defence Department would be incapable of digesting this. They have a culture of secrecy that goes beyond any reasonableness. Whilst they do have genuine secrets to keep, they regularly engage in ‘cover-ups’, doing anything and everything to avoid revealing bad news regarding schedule, cost or performance of their projects, including to the Senate.

All Defence Department projects are on time until the date that they are suddenly two years late, just like all their projects are on budget until suddenly it jumps from $30 billion to $45 billion (as occurred with the Future Frigates). And there are never any Defence projects with performance issues until there is a leak from within the Defence department or cancellation of the project has been announced.

The last thing we need in the nuclear reactor regulatory space is an organisation that begrudgingly announces problems only after the Geiger counter starts clicking rapidly.

We will already have to contend with genuine security requirements that could stifle safety communications. The Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council has advised:

“If a regulator cannot provide information on safety and incidents at licenced facilities without the approval of another organisation, issues of independence and transparency will arise. Reporting arrangements should therefore enable the regulatory body to be able to provide safety related information to the Government and the public with the maximum amount of transparency … Recognising national security issues are relevant, the criteria by which information is withheld for such purposes should be clear, and alternative approaches to public assurance provided.”

The Defence Department won’t be listening.

Experience and expertise strategy

I’ve been to sea on US Navy Los Angeles class nuclear submarines. I was recently asked “did you feel safe”? The answer was “yes”. But the answer had the caveat that the Navy I was sailing with had been operating nuclear submarines since 1954 (the UK has been doing so since 1960).

The US Navy’s nuclear propulsion program has an impressive safety record achieved through a highly robust safety culture and deep reserves of experience. Section heads in their Naval Reactors Headquarters Organisation, for example, have an average of over 30-years’ experience while field representatives average more than 20 years.

We have none of that, and it just can’t be bought. We’re almost starting from scratch and that means we’ll have to adopt a different regime to the US and UK. The RHSAC warns against importing a regulatory model from overseas saying:

Regulatory frameworks utilised in other countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom, are useful for comparison and guidance. However, other countries’ frameworks grew from an era of different drives, priorities, and expectations.

An Australian regulator will require a much more robust legal and institutional framework to avoid being compromised by the objectives, needs and interests of the operator, especially a Defence Department and Navy that will be ‘under the gun’ to deliver operational capability as fast as possible.

Government direction will need to be clear. There needs to be an independent national nuclear regulator dealing with both civilian and military reactors.

ARPANSA must grow from an organisation managing just one civilian nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney for scientific research and medical isotope production, to an organisation that can regulate all of that as well as a Navy carrying ‘cradle to grave’ responsibility for eight nuclear-powered submarines, some at sea, some in port, and some in drydock in maintenance at any point in time, with appropriate support from other government and industry entities.

The Navy must separately grow its nuclear operational, sustainment and safety teams.

Competing for common finite resources will result in disaster.

Australia’s regulatory approach

Just what path the Albanese Government will take in relation to nuclear submarine safety is not yet clear. It wasn’t revealed in the documents released by ARPANSA under FOI.

However, it appears highly likely that the Defence Department will seek to drive it down the pathway in which primary responsibility for reactor safety will reside within the Defence Department; the same Department that in 2009 was explaining that”

it was not possible for Australia to operate nuclear submarines without having an onshore nuclear industry.

It will be the deliberate and unnecessary secrecy to date that will see this presented as a fait accompli.

.Adopting such a Defence Department regulator model would be a mistake.

In remarkable similarity to the topic of affordability, there hasn’t been enough discussion about nuclear safety. This is another issue that has been overlooked in news reporting and commentary on the AUKUS submarine scheme.

More discussion is needed and the principles and standards set out in the RHSAC formal letter of advice to ARPANSA may well prove to be a benchmark in public and parliamentary debate against which the safety regime for the Australian nuclear submarine project will be judged.