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The Navy announced this week that it picked California-based company Radiant Industries to deliver a cutting-edge nuclear microreactor to a naval facility in Indiana — the latest in a Pentagon-wide push to give American military installations self-sustaining energy that is fully independent of local power grids.
Navy officials said a prototype of Radiant Industries’ “Kaleidos,” a factory-built, transportable 1-megawatt microreactor that can be moved by air, land or sea, will be delivered to Naval Weapons Station Crane, Indiana.
While it will be installed at a naval facility, the announcement is tied to the Army’s Janus program, which aims to put at least 20 nuclear microreactors at military bases.
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“The Janus Program was built from day one to deliver real, reliable hardware and systems to solve energy resilience challenges across all of the Services,” Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with the Navy to place a Janus reactor at NWS Crane, and by doing so to deliver the state of Indiana its first advanced microreactor.”
Radiant Industries is the only company selected by all three U.S. military departments — the Navy, Army and Air Force — to provide nuclear microreactors at bases.
“There is not an organization in the world with more experience in nuclear power than the U.S. Navy,” Tori Shivanandan, Radiant’s president and chief operating officer, said in a press release. “We are honored to be selected by the U.S. Navy for this important work, and we thank the Navy and the Army’s Dr. Waksman for their confidence in Radiant to deliver reliable, resilient nuclear power wherever their mission demands.”
The Navy has operated nuclear-powered submarines since the 1950s. But deploying nuclear energy at bases is a new endeavor for the Pentagon.
For the military, reliance on diesel generators when deployed abroad and local electric grids here at home — the same grids that serve the general public — is widely viewed as a significant national security threat.
Fueling logistics associated with those diesel generators limit U.S. forces’ operations abroad. Domestically, if local power grids are compromised by a natural disaster, enemy attack or cyber operation, military installations could lose power.
Ensuring that bases have their own independent, reliable power supplies is a top priority for the Trump administration. In a Sept. 30 speech, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched “Fortress America,” an initiative aimed at making military bases self-reliant. Nuclear microreactors are a central part of that effort.
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