MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th December, 2022) Australian physicists are calling for investments in nuclear science and training of a new generation of specialists to develop nuclear industry in the country amid the AUKUS submarine deal, Australian media reported on Wednesday.
Australia's plans to buy and build nuclear submarines will require a workforce of nuclear engineers and scientists, and leading experts insist on the need to develop a strategy for nuclear science education, saying that the country has to fill key nuclear safety positions, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
"The need (for developing nuclear science) is urgent. The captain of our first nuclear submarine is probably already in secondary school today. This must be a sovereign capability. And it needs to start yesterday," Alan-John Mitchell, senior lecturer in the Australia National University's Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
Mitchell stressed that nuclear science should be cherished and appreciated rather than feared, the report said.
At the same time, the newspaper noted that environmental researchers do not share Mitchell's views, saying that such measures could destabilize the situation in the region.
"Significant funding for research into nuclear physics and engineering would send precisely the wrong signals to our regional neighbors and increase their anxieties that what we are seeing is precisely the start of that nuclear arms race," Peter Christoff, a climate policy researcher at the University of Melbourne, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have been closely cooperating in the military area for several years,and announced a trilateral defense partnership called AUKUS in September 2021. The first initiative announced under the AUKUS pact was the creation of nuclear-powered submarine technology for the Royal Australian Navy. The countries also conduct regular joint exercises.
