‘This’ is going to be interesting…
The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Navy is planning to install Indiana’s first advanced nuclear micro modular reactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane by September 2028.
The reactor’s deployment helps carry out President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order calling for the swift integration of nuclear power within the military, with a goal of having at least one working reactor on a military base by Sept. 30, 2028.
Full article, HERE from Navy Times.
Since Indiana doesn’t have any nuclear plants in the state, it will be interesting to see what happens. Supposedly, Indiana has planned to ‘investigate’ changing coal plants to nuclear at some time in the future…
And this is the first ‘move’ by .gov to get reliable power onto bases, rather than trust the local power generation. It will be really interesting when they do this at San Diego and Camp Pendleton!
Personally, I’m in favor of it, as the Navy has an excellent history with reactors! 🙂
Doing a little google search I find that the MMR (Micro Modular Reactor) will be installed by the Army’s Janus project and owned and operated by a private company, not the Navy. A quick search revealed several copies of the same press release but no further details on the type of reactor or power output. I’ve seen a lot of press releases on nuclear plants that didn’t pan out. I hope this one does, maybe with DOD behind it, this reactor will actually be built. I’ll keep looking for more info on this plant.
Found this on the “World Nuclear News” web Page
“Idaho National Laboratory, which is also supporting the programme, defines a microreactor as “a small nuclear reactor that can operate as part of the electric grid, independently from the electric grid, or as part of a microgrid to generate up to 20 megawatts thermal energy that can be used to generate electricity and provide heat for industrial applications. Most of these small reactors are designed to be portable” and many of the proposed designs can be moved by truck.’
I like the idea of having some extra mobile generation power in the 20MW range, it’s a smart idea. I can think of several scenarios where it might need to be put into play relatively quickly.
Better to have and not need, than need and not have.
Yay?
“executive order calling for the swift integration”
Three years is swift?
I wonder what Adm Zoomie would think of “owned and operated by a private company”?
Yes, the Navy has a long history running reactors but these are about as far as you can get from >100 MWt seawater cooled propulsion turbine plants that make a little electricity on the side. My first though was “Oh boy, in-rate shore duty for Nucs!!” but when you understand it is a totally different plant with totally different operating requirements it will be a different career track if the Navy takes over operations. Carrier nucs don’t get assigned to subs for a tour for a reason.
MM1(SS)
Saw the announcement for the micro nukes. Antares Nuclear for Ft.Bragg, BWXT for Ft.Campbell, General Atomic for Ft.Hood, Radiant for Ft.Benning and Westinghouse Electronic for Ft.Drum.
All- Thanks for the comments and the info. I didn’t have time to dig into this as much as I should. NRW, that is interesting… Rick, I was aware of that, I think. My cousin was a Nuke ET on subs, never got the option for surface Nuc.