Army names 5 bases receiving nuclear microreactors for more reliable power

The Army plans to spend up to $2.2 billion developing nuclear microreactors at stateside military bases as it looks to reduce its dependence on civilian power grids.

The first reactors will be at Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Benning, Ga.; and Fort Drum, N.Y., the Army said in a statement Wednesday.

The goal is to build over 20 more at installations across the U.S. in the future, the Army said. Additional locations and sites belonging to other military services will be announced later, the statement said.

The Army aims to have the first reactor operating by September 2028, but the statement did not specify which one. No timeline beyond that was provided.

“We are building the energy resilience necessary to project combat power globally, without relying on potentially vulnerable external grids,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said in the statement.

Microreactors use nuclear fission, the same basic process as a conventional nuclear reactor, but are designed to be compact and supply power to a relatively small site.

They have passive safety systems that allow them to shut down and avoid overheating without operator intervention or external power.

Their small size and relatively low amount of nuclear material also give them a lower risk profile than traditional large nuclear reactors.

Microreactor designs currently under development can generate about 1 to 20 megawatts, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in April.

Several companies have been developing smaller reactors designed to produce about a third of the electricity of a traditional reactor, or less, in response to the high costs, red-tape and siting constraints that have limited the growth of nuclear power in the U.S., it said.

Five companies were chosen to build the Army’s initial reactors. Antares Nuclear will build the one at Fort Bragg, while BWXT Advanced Technologies will handle the Fort Campbell project.

They are joined by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Radiant Industries at Fort Benning and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum.

The prototype reactors will be owned and operated by contractors rather than the military.

They are being built under the Janus Program, which is focused on providing military installations with reliable power independent of outside electrical grids.

Previously, the Army had identified a total of nine potential Janus Program sites, including the five selected and four others: Fort Wainwright, Alaska; Holston Army Ammunition Plant, Tenn.; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.; and Redstone Arsenal, Ala.

The Army’s efforts are part of a broader trend aimed at ensuring the military can sustain the increasingly power-hungry systems that support its operations.

For example, the Janus Program builds on a Defense Department project to develop deployable microreactors to power operations in remote locations and harsh environments.

Known as Project Pele, it launched in 2020 to design, build, and demonstrate a prototype microreactor that can fit in a traditional 20-foot shipping container and can be transported by plane.

That system, which will be tested at the Idaho National Laboratory, is designed to generate 1.5 megawatts of “always-on” electricity, according to BWXT, which began manufacturing the microreactor core last year.

The Air Force plans to build its first nuclear microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, to deliver up to 5 megawatts of electricity by the end of the decade.

While the Navy has used advanced nuclear reactors since the 1950s to power aircraft carriers and submarines, it is also soliciting offers for commercial small reactor solutions to power its bases, the EIA said.

Bases rely heavily on the civilian power grid, so even short-term disruption to electricity can affect vital missions happening in real time on the other side of the world.

In 2021, military bases across the country suffered more than 6,000 energy disruptions, equal to 3,000 days of lost power, according to the Atlantic Council.

Several of the bases selected for new microreactors have already invested in systems designed to keep critical operations running during commercial power outages.

Fort Benning has a natural gas microgrid designed to power critical facilities for at least two weeks, while Fort Hood opened a microgrid at Robert Gray Army Airfield in 2024.