How Rolls-Royce is powering nuclear submarines

What is being done practically in the nuclear space? The UK blue chip Rolls-Royce has been responsible for designing nuclear propulsion systems in Royal Navy submarines for the best part of 70 years now. And they’re hoping to use this expertise to help kickstart a nuclear renaissance in the UK. Lee Warren’s the director of engineering and technology at Rolls-Royce Submarines. What, I wanted to know first, are the advantages nuclear energy offers for underwater operations…

Lee - The great thing about nuclear energy from a propulsion perspective is it doesn't need air. It doesn't need to breathe in real simple terms. So what we're able to do and have been able to do since the late 1950s is harness the power of nuclear fission in a relatively small package, put it in a submarine, and what that actually ends up with is a fighting vessel that is only limited by its ability to feed the crew. That is the limiting factor for how long a submarine can stay submerged and go on patrol to do all the things that the government needs it to do. Crucially,

Chris - In the course of doing this for more than half a century, you've now worked out how to do this in a way that works. Because one of the concepts about Rolls-Royce modular reactors, for example, is you want to now produce things which are a fleet of these sorts of small, shrunk down, condensed reactors that could power towns.

Lee - The detailed technology that we use for submarine propulsion for our government is, as I'm sure your listeners will understand, highly classified because it provides a military advantage. Having said that, the broader know-how and how you can harness the power of fission in a nuclear reactor can absolutely be scaled. It is scaled currently in terms of gigawatt power stations that provide power to our electric grid in the UK today. As you mentioned in your quesiotn, it's also being scaled from a Rolls-Royce SMR perspective, small modular reactor perspective. We're also downscaling this technology from a microreactor application too, so it has lots of exciting applications at all scales.

Chris - What about pairs of hands though, Lee? Because one of the things that keeps on emerging from the manufacturing sector is people say, we need skilled people who can do this Now in order to scale up this sort of thing, to do the kinds of projects we've been discussing, powering towns with small modular reactors or even sending them into space, you need the kinds of people who can do this. Can you lay your hands on the skilled hands that you are going to need?

Lee - Great question. So the previous government last year launched something called the Nuclear Skills Task Force. Rolls-Royce were heavily involved in that. I was personally a member of that group. The great thing about it was we all came together. And when I say we, I mean all of the major organisations that comprised the UK nuclear industry. We did a forward look on the amount of work that is ahead of us. So that is power generation submarine proportion today, submarine proportion tomorrow, even including fusion as well as fission. And we took that forward load and came up with a number of recommendations to the government for what we needed to do differently to make sure that we have the skills that we need to meet all of our commitments today and tomorrow, and actually out to about a hundred years from now. It was far more than a wishlist. It came with some committed funding and some of that has been recommitted by the current government as well.

Chris - So they're dead serious about this, aren't they?

Lee - Very much so. And speaking from a Rolls-Royce specific perspective, we saw this coming. We opened a dedicated nuclear schools academy right here in Derby, not too far away from where I'm sitting talking to you today, explicitly to generate the capabilities that we need for the future.

Chris - And is that around, what, technicians recruiting people from university? What will that academy look like?

Lee - The important thing is that we need all levels of skills in the nuclear industry. So that's right from direct entry, from finishing school at the age of 16. People straight out of their A levels all the way up to and including degree level qualifications. I introduced myself as the engineering director. But we need far more than just engineering skills as well. We need programme management skills. We need business management skills, absolutely essential in order for us to develop what the customers need.