What do you make of the last section of the original article?

   Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, backed the new deal and said his initial response was "surprise".

   "The irony is that when we chose the French-designed submarine a few years ago we actually took a nuclear-powered submarine and have been spending millions of dollars turning it into a diesel submarine."

That there were a lot of really good fel-cell powered, heck even really good diesel-electric, subs on the market. And that the how's and when's behind the decision to buy a nuclear sub, just to transform it into a diesel-electric one, would be really interesting to know...