I see the opposite happening. If the RCN doesn't go for the sub designer to "define, modify, navally certify" and hold them accountable to that for the AIP reactant replenishment system, and if the RCN instead try on their own to fabricate some base RCN design requirement, without the active participation knowledge of TKMS, the RCN will end up paying 2x as much or more, and could very well end up with a system that doesn't work. I see TKMS being held responsible being key here - and that needs IMHO to be done by TKMS designing, modifying, ... etc - where they have existing commercialized Canadian containerized GOX/LOX generation and hydrogen generation systems to use as their basis.
The RCN has a window now, with an existing contract being negotiated - to attempt to get the most possible for the money to be spent - with solid milestone payments tied to the carefully designed deliverables.
Lee Matheson, I am going to respond to your two posts together because I honestly do not have the patience to split this into two separate replies. I have already spent enough time on this speculative proposal.
Nobody disputes that commercial hydrogen generation, oxygen liquefaction and containerized gas technologies exist. The issue is whether they can be combined into a safe, mobile, naval certified system for producing, storing and transferring submarine grade LOX and hydrogen to a Type 212CD. That involves purity standards, cryogenic handling, transfer pressures, hazardous area controls, emergency shutdowns, fire and explosion protection, exclusion zones, trained personnel, environmental limitations and certification of the complete system. A hydrogen or LOX accident beside a submarine would not be a minor industrial incident. It could kill people, destroy the boat and close the supporting facility. Pointing to Canadian companies that manufacture individual components does not establish that the complete concept is safe, affordable or operationally necessary.
You say other Type 212A and Type 214 operators may be interested. Perhaps they are, but after decades of operating fuel cell AIP submarines, not one appears to use the mobile replenishment arrangement you are advocating, not one! That does not prove it is impossible, but it should tell us something about its practicality, cost and safety. Canada should not volunteer to become the development customer simply because the technology sounds plausible on paper.
You also describe this as merely an assessment, yet you want TKMS tasked to “define, modify and navally certify” the submarine and establish Canadian industrial interfaces during the current contract. That is not simply asking a question. It is the beginning of a Canadian specific engineering requirement for a hypothetical system that does not exist and may never be purchased. Lee, having worked in DND procurement, you should recognize the Canadianization trap here: studies become requirements, requirements become design changes, and design changes add cost, delay, integration risk and long term support obligations.
The sensible approach is to acquire the proven submarine configuration as others have said and its established replenishment arrangements. If Canada later establishes a genuine operational requirement for mobile reactant support, the mobile system should be designed and certified to work with the submarine’s existing interfaces. We should not modify the submarine fleet around an imaginary future support system and risk creating an expensive orphan configuration. Nor is Canada automatically “locked in” for forty years if this is not inserted into the acquisition contract now. Shore infrastructure and support systems can be expanded or upgraded later if an actual requirement and viable business case emerge.
The Arctic argument does not rescue the proposal. Nanisivik is being permanently closed. The only remotely plausible northern options would be places such as Iqaluit or Nuuk, and either would require secure facilities, specialized personnel, hazardous material storage, emergency services, transportation support and, in Nuuk’s case, host nation approval. A few ISO containers sitting on a northern wharf do not constitute a safe submarine replenishment facility. A purpose equipped commercial vessel might theoretically carry such a system into a Greenland or Labrador fjord, but that would introduce an entirely new set of safety, certification, crewing, survivability and transfer risks.
There is nothing wrong with asking TKMS what proven replenishment options are available. What I reject is the insistence that Canada must immediately pay TKMS to define, modify and certify a speculative Canadian system simply because it might conceivably prove useful. A favourable political spending environment is not an excuse to attach every technically imaginable idea to the contract. The priority is delivering proven submarines, weapons, sensors, training, maintenance and safe shore support on time and in sufficient numbers. This proposal is exactly how requirements expand, costs climb and schedules slip.
