By Valerie Volcovici
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah, February 15 – The Departments of Energy and Defense of the United States for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential for rapid deployment of nuclear energy for military and civilian use.
The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey were on the C-17 flight with the reactor and its components, and hailed the event as a breakthrough for US nuclear power and military logistics.
“This brings us closer to using nuclear power when and where it is needed to give our nation’s warfighters the tools to win the battle,” Duffey said.
President Donald Trump’s administration sees small nuclear reactors as one of several ways to expand US energy production. Trump last May issued four executive orders aimed at boosting domestic nuclear deployment to meet growing demand for energy for national security and competitive AI advances.
The Department of Energy in December issued two grants to help accelerate the development of small modular reactors.
Proponents of microreactors have also found them as sources of energy that can be sent to distant and remote locations, offering an alternative to diesel generators that require frequent deliveries of fuel. But skeptics argued that the industry had not proven that small nuclear reactors could generate power for a reasonable price.
“There is no business case for microreactors, which – even if they work as designed – will produce electricity at a much higher cost than large nuclear reactors, not to mention renewable sources like wind or solar,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear energy safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Energy Department plans to have three microreactors reach “criticality” — when a nuclear reaction can sustain itself — by July 4, Wright said.
The microreactor at Sunday’s event, slightly larger than a minivan, can generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, according to Valar CEO Isaiah Taylor. He said it will start operating in July with 100 kilowatts and reach a peak of 250 kilowatts this year before increasing to full capacity.
Valar hopes to start selling energy on a test basis in 2027 and become fully commercial in 2028. Although private industry finances its own development of nuclear technology, it also requires the federal government to “do some enabling actions to allow fuel fabrication here and uranium enrichment here,” he said.
The fuel for the Valar reactor will be transported from the Nevada Homeland Security site to the San Rafael facility, Wright told reporters.
However, even small generators result in a significant amount of radioactive waste, Lyman said. Other experts said that designers are not forced to consider waste at the beginning, beyond a plan of how it will be managed.
Although the disposal of nuclear waste remains an unresolved issue, the Department of Energy is in talks with a few states, including Utah, to host sites that could reprocess the fuel or handle permanent disposal, Wright said.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Sergio Non and Lincoln Feast.)