The Division of Protection is on the verge of a breakthrough with superior nuclear power that guarantees to strengthen navy readiness and revitalize a globally aggressive U.S. industrial nuclear business. However for that to occur, it must shelve the thought of a cellular microreactor that the navy can deliver on abroad deployments. As a substitute, the Division of Protection ought to prioritize fastened nuclear reactors at home U.S. navy installations that can strengthen power reliability for on-base essential missions and the encompassing protection communities which might be important to finishing up nationwide protection.
Not since Adm. Hyman G. Rickover ushered within the period of Navy nuclear propulsion has the U.S. navy been ready to harness nuclear energy to bolster U.S. power dominance. And a breakthrough couldn’t come sooner, as {the electrical} grid serving 99 p.c of U.S. navy installations faces surging demand from AI knowledge facilities and semiconductor chip manufacturing. More and more excessive climate can be inflicting outages that exceed on-base backup energy functionality. The character of a globally networked power the place home navy installations are more and more tied to abroad missions — from drones to cyber operations — signifies that an influence failure at dwelling places operators overseas in danger. That can’t occur.
Regardless of the necessity for extra dependable electrical energy at U.S. navy installations, the Division of Protection has centered appreciable analysis and improvement on a cellular nuclear reactor. In 2019, the Strategic Capabilities Workplace launched the Mission Pele demonstration reactor to serve the navy’s operational power wants. The concept sounds easy: use a nuclear reactor to generate electrical energy on the battlefield as a substitute of hauling diesel gasoline to energy turbines. It’s a worthy purpose provided that gasoline traces are extremely weak to sabotage and assault.
Sadly, Mission Pele is conceptually flawed as an power resolution for the trendy and cellular U.S. navy. As we speak’s servicemembers demand velocity and agility — options {that a} cellular reactor can not ship. Due to the shielding required to guard folks from radiation publicity, the Mission Pele reactor takes three days to arrange and 7 days to take down. That’s far too lengthy for a forward-deployed power which will have to relocate swiftly — or is below hearth — particularly in a contested space. The Nationwide Academy of Sciences concluded the identical in a 2021 examine.
On the flip facet, due to a fixation with transporting a reactor aboard a C-17 plane and the shielding wanted to make that occur safely, the design is restricted to at least one megawatt (it was initially proposed to be as much as 5 megawatts). That’s too small to satisfy the bigger power hundreds at abroad bases that devour numerous energy and rely on outdoors gasoline sources that could be disrupted throughout a battle. Nonetheless, an airlifted cellular reactor may nonetheless work: it simply means using a number of reactors, which provides extra security and safety necessities in conditions and environments that always demand simplicity. For these causes and extra, cellular microreactors appear a far distant actuality.
And but Mission Pele has develop into synonymous with the whole lot the Division of Protection is doing with microreactors and small modular reactors. Ask virtually anybody in regards to the navy’s efforts on this house and also you’re more likely to get a solution mentioning Mission Pele. This has solely sowed confusion about what the Division of Protection wants, a lot in order that Congress continues to pour cash into Mission Pele as a substitute of applications which have an actual shot at creating superior nuclear energy as an choice to provide dependable electrical energy to home navy installations.
In 2020, at Congress’s path, the Air Drive started asking for a microreactor at Eielson Air Drive Base in Alaska (it introduced an intent to award a contract in 2023 but it surely stays below protest). The Military, in 2024, launched its Superior Nuclear Energy for Installations program in partnership with the Protection Innovation Unit and the Air Drive to discover utilizing microreactors starting from 3 to 10 megawatts to generate energy for essential missions. These missions normally characterize a small portion of the full power at an set up, however they are often remoted from the industrial electrical energy system with an on-base microgrid. That program lately introduced eight corporations which might be eligible for demonstration contracts, a big milestone. In distinction, the Navy introduced its personal effort in 2024 to have a look at small modular reactors for set up readiness. These reactors can vary as much as 300 megawatts and should ship sufficient electrical energy for a base and the encompassing neighborhood, probably serving to to offer direct power reduction to the industrial grid.
These installation-focused efforts align with the Trump administration’s cost to “unleash American power.” On Jan. 20, 2025, President Trump issued an government order that referred to as on all federal companies to rapidly take away any hurdles to tapping home power, “with explicit consideration to … nuclear power assets.” Moreover, the Trump administration is eyeing navy installations to website energy-intensive industrial knowledge facilities and uncommon earth mineral refineries, partly to expedite the federal allowing course of and get these essential amenities on-line rapidly. Superior nuclear energy on navy installations is a perfect candidate to make sure adequate electrical energy for these industrial functions since they don’t shed load — they’re both on or off, like nuclear energy.
Luckily, the Division of Protection is now coordinating these set up efforts and catalyzing momentum. That coordination is significant to assist the companies capitalize on earlier achievements and work collectively to reveal the security and efficiency of superior reactors. It additionally offers the Division of Protection an opportunity to leverage current bipartisan reforms to expedite the Nuclear Regulatory Fee’s licensing course of for superior reactors and affect the home manufacturing of high-assay low-enriched uranium to gasoline these reactors. However not like Mission Pele, these initiatives lack devoted funding that’s desperately wanted for them to succeed.
Because the Trump administration works with Congress to establish efficiencies on the Division of Protection, realigning funds from Mission Pele to the companies’ set up nuclear energy efforts can be a prudent alternative. Mission Pele has most likely gone so far as physics will enable it to go. It has achieved outstanding technological milestones, to make sure, and BWX Applied sciences, the industrial developer, will be capable to leverage classes for its civilian microreactor. However it’s inconceivable, with out a unprecedented scientific breakthrough, that this system will obtain its purpose of a deployable microreactor that meets the navy’s necessities for fast motion to a ahead location.
That doesn’t imply Mission Pele has failed — fairly the other. The greater than half a billion {dollars} that Congress has appropriated for it has propelled America’s next-generation nuclear capabilities and cast shut collaboration between the Division of Protection, the Division of Power and its nationwide labs, and the Nuclear Regulatory Fee that’s essential to realizing this nuclear second.
Shifting funds to the companies’ nuclear energy set up efforts now will assist the Division of Protection proceed its aggressive course of because it selects from a number of designs and begins prototyping a handful of reactors, with a purpose of building an orderbook of reactors that meet America’s excessive customary for security, safety, and nonproliferation from which the companies can choose sooner or later. Getting there requires the Division of Protection to place a great deal of cash up entrance to de-risk the technological improvement. That can purchase down the long-term prices of a reactor whereas additionally serving to to kickstart a sophisticated U.S. nuclear energy business. Nevertheless it’s as much as the Trump administration and Congress: Except they act, the Division of Protection’s breakthrough nuclear second might vanish earlier than it actually occurs.
Will Rogers served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Military from 2022 to 2025. He’s presently a principal at Converge Methods, a consulting agency specializing in power, resilience, and nationwide safety, and an adjunct senior fellow on the Heart for a New American Safety.
Picture: Midjourney.
