HILL AIR FORCE BASE (US), Feb 21: The Pentagon and the Energy Department for the first time airlifted a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah, demonstrating what they say is US potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.
The nearly 700-mile flight last weekend – which transported a 5-megawatt microreactor without nuclear fuel – highlights the Trump administration’s drive to promote nuclear energy to help meet skyrocketing demand for power from artificial intelligence and data centres, as well for use by the military.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Undersecretary of Defence Michael Duffey, who travelled with the privately built reactor, hailed the February 15 trip on a C-17 military aircraft as a breakthrough for US efforts to fast-track commercial licensing for the microreactors, part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshape the country’s energy landscape.
President Donald Trump supports nuclear power – a carbon-free source of electricity – as a reliable energy source, even as he has been broadly hostile to renewable energy and prioritises coal and other fossil fuels to produce electricity.
Skeptics warn that nuclear energy poses risks and say microreactors may not be safe or feasible and have not proved they can meet demand for a reasonable price.
Wright brushed those concerns aside as he touted progress on Trump’s push for a quick escalation of nuclear power. Trump signed a series of executive orders last year that allow Wright to approve some advanced reactor designs and projects, taking authority away from the independent safety agency that has regulated the US nuclear industry for five decades.
“Today is history. A multi-megawatt, next-generation nuclear power plant is loaded in the C-17 behind us,” Wright said before the two-hour flight from March Air Reserve Base in California to Hill Air Force base in Utah.
The minivan-sized reactor transported by the military is one of at least three that will reach “criticality” – when a nuclear reaction can sustain an ongoing series of reactions – by July 4, as Trump has promised, Wright said.
“That’s speed, that’s innovation, that’s the start of a nuclear renaissance,” he said.
Currently, there are 94 operable nuclear reactors in the US that generate about 19 per cent of the country’s electricity, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s down from 104 reactors in 2013 and includes two new commercial reactors in Georgia that were the nation’s first large reactors built from scratch in a generation.
Recognising delays inherent to deployment of new, full-scale reactors, the industry and government have focused in recent years on more efficient designs, including a small modular reactor proposed by the nation’s largest public power company, the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Microreactors, designed to be portable, can take that a step further and “accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed,” Duffey said. Eventually, the mobile reactors could provide energy security on a military base without the civilian grid, he and other officials said.
The demonstration flight “gets us closer to deploy nuclear power when and where it is needed to give our nation’s warfighters the tools to win in battle,” Duffey said.
The reactor transported to Utah will be able to generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, said Isaiah Taylor, CEO of Valar Atomics, the California startup that produced the reactor.
The company hopes to start selling power on a test basis next year and become fully commercial in 2028. (PTI)
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