The US military is investing billions in microreactors, creating a market that could shape the future of nuclear energy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, the anticipated driving force behind America’s spiking energy demand, seem to be faltering, and with that trend may plummet the hopes that a major expansion of commercial nuclear energy will power the future. But part of that market, the microreactor sector, could find an unlikely savior in the Department of Defense (DOD).  

It was naval nuclear power in the 1950s that paved the way for pressurized water reactors to become the standard for commercial nuclear energy production in the United States. Now the Army and Air Force are leading the way on microreactors.

According to the Army’s head of reactor projects, Jeff Waksman, that service has “set aside more than $2 billion over the next five years to develop and build first-of-a-kind reactors.” And beyond purely military applications, the Army’s nuclear power projects are designed to “help commercial vendors develop mass-producible, commercially ready reactors that can be sold on the open market.”

President Donald Trump’s May 2024 nuclear energy executive orders set a deadline of September 30, 2028, for the operation of a small domestic military reactor. This is several years earlier than the estimate for commercial small reactors to come online.

The interest in non-naval nuclear power is linked to a 2016 Defense Science Board analysis that identified nuclear energy as a “critical enabler of future military operations.” This recommendation was designed to address problems resulting from dependence on diesel fuel for forward and remote military operations. A 2018 Army study identified that 52 percent of casualties in the Iraq conflict were linked to land transport missions, including the diesel fuel supply chain that supported electricity generation.

Subsequently, the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) identified other new military technologies that could benefit from a mobile reactor’s energy production, including “unmanned aerial vehicles, new radar systems, new weapons systems, and electrifying the non-tactical vehicle fleet.”

Project PELE: The Pentagon’s First Portable Nuclear Microreactor

The first DOD initiative was Project Pele, which is administered by the SCO in collaboration with the Army and Department of Energy (DOE). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is providing additional guidance. 

The goal of the program is to design, build, and demonstrate a prototype of a portable 1.5-megawatt electric (MWe) microreactor weighing less than 40 tons and utilizing tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) fuel for deployment at remote military installations. 

While several microreactor technologies were considered, BWXT won the contract for its high-temperature gas-cooled reactor and broke ground at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in September 2024.  Its product is designed to fit into four 20-foot-long shipping containers and be carried on trucks and C-17 cargo planes. The initial High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel load arrived at INL in December 2025, and testing is scheduled to begin in 2027. Other partners in the project include Rolls-Royce, Northrop Grumman, and Torch Technologies.

Janus Program: Bringing Commercial Microreactors to Army Bases

The Janus Program is the most recent military microreactor program, launched in May 2025, and it builds on Project PELE. It is administered by the Army and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). Its goal differs from Project PELE, as it aims to deploy commercially owned and operated microreactors with 1-20 MWe of power for use on domestic military installations.  

In November 2025, the Army identified nine sites for potential deployment: Fort Benning, Georgia; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Drum, New York; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Wainwright, Arkansas; Holston Army Ammunition Plant, Tennessee; Joint-Base Lewis McChord, Washington; and Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

So far, DIU has issued a solicitation for advanced reactor technologies, but no vendors have been chosen. However, the Army has stated that DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP) “offers foundational support to the Army’s Janus Program.”  The RPP is supporting 11 reactor designs—Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, Last Energy, Oklo (two projects), Natura Resources, Radiant Industries, Terrestrial Energy, and Valar Atomics. Several of these reactors, Antares, Oklo, and Radiant, have been identified as potential military-use reactors, so the RPP is providing a test bed for them. 

The RPP goal is for three of these reactors to achieve some form of criticality by July 4, 2026. Antares achieved this zero-power criticality on June 4 with the Mark-0 reactor, which contains no power-conversion equipment. Radiant is prepared to go further and conduct a “full power, commercial scale, multi-megawatt test” at INL in 2026 and operate the reactor for 150 continuous hours.

The first Oklo Aurora reactor is under construction at Idaho National Laboratory as part of the RPP and recently receivedapproval from the lab for its preliminary documented safety analysis (PDSA). Under the RPP, NRC approval is not necessary, but it will be required for commercial operation.

The Army’s Waksman has stated that the Janus Program is looking to pair “specific reactor designs to specific US Army installations,” indicating that more than one reactor design will be pursued. He noted that the RPP criticality tests are “an important step” but that “[n]ext, we need a microreactor to generate electrons.”

Air Force Microreactor Pilot Program Advances Nuclear Energy Security

The Air Force Microreactor Pilot Program has similarities to the Janus Project. It is designed to develop a commercial microreactor of up to 5 MWe power that can be licensed by the NRC and deliver electricity and thermal energy to an Air Force or Space Force installation. 

It is being administered in partnership with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Office of Energy, which is tasked with executing a 30-year power purchase agreement with a reactor vendor that will “construct, own, operate, maintain, and decommission” the reactor. The Air Force has chosen Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, as the initial location for the pilot project, with Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, as a potential additional location. 

Last June, the Air Force issued a Notice of Intent to Award (NOITA) the project contract to Oklo for its liquid-metal cooled fast reactor. That award starts a negotiation process and requires Oklo to successfully meet all NRC licensing requirements. The NRC is currently engaged in pre-application activities with Oklo on its Aurora reactor. 

Advanced Nuclear Power for Military Installations

The Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) program was launched in 2024 as a collaboration between DIU, the Army, and the Air Force. Its goal is to deploy advanced nuclear power to DOD installations with a power range of 3-10 MWe. 

The goals of ANPI and the Microreactor Pilot Program are similar, but the approaches differ. ANPI is using an Other Transactional Authority (OTA) approach, which allows it to work with multiple vendors across different phases of the project. ANPI has selected three installations as potential microreactor sites—Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado, Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, and Joint Base San Antonio, Texas. By contrast, the Air Force pilot project is limited to a single vendor and location. 

In November 2025, DIU awarded initial contracts to eight vendors—Antares Nuclear, BWXT Advanced Technologies, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, Kairos Power, Oklo, Radiant Industries, Westinghouse, and X-energy. 

In April, Joint Base San Antonio was paired with Antares Nuclear’s R1 microreactor, Buckley Space Force Base with Radiant Industries Kaleidos reactor, and Malmstrom Air Force Base with Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor. The power output for these reactors ranges from 1-5 MWe, and they are designed to be deployed “virtually anywhere in the world.” 

About the Author: Kenneth Luongo

Kenneth N. Luongo is a recognized innovator, entrepreneur, and leader in global nuclear energy and transnational security policy. He is the president and founder of the Partnership for Global Security (PGS). He has been a TEDx presenter, written over 100 articles, including in The New York Times and Foreign Affairs, and engaged extensively with global media, governments, and audiences around the world on nuclear energy and transnational security challenges and responses. He was formerly a senior advisor to the secretary of energy and a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

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