Saturday, February 21st 2026
The Pentagon and the Department of Energy for the first time airlifted a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah, demonstrating what they call the U.S.’s potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.
The nearly 1,126-kilometer flight last weekend, which carried a 5-megawatt microreactor without nuclear fuel, highlights the Trump administration’s push to promote nuclear power to help meeting the growing demand for power from AI and data centers as well as for military use.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Undersecretary of Defense Michael Duffey, who traveled with the privately built reactor, hailed the trip on a C-17 military aircraft as a breakthrough in U.S. efforts to expedite commercial licensing for microreactors, part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshaped the nation’s energy landscape.
President Donald Trump supports nuclear power — a carbon-free energy source — as a reliable energy source, even though he has been widely hostile to renewable energy and favors coal and other fossil fuels to generate electricity.
Skeptics warn that nuclear power poses risks and say microreactors may not be safe or feasible and have not proven that they can meet the demand for a reasonable price.
Wright brushed aside those concerns as he praised progress in Trump’s push for a rapid scale-up of nuclear power.
Trump signed a series of executive orders last year that allow Wright to approve some advanced reactor designs and designs, removing authority from the Independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has regulated the U.S. nuclear industry to five decades.
“Today is history. A next-generation multi-megawatt nuclear power plant has been loaded into the C-17 behind us,” Wright said before the two-hour flight from March Air Force Base in California to Hill Air Force Base in Utah.
The minivan-sized reactor transported by the military is one of at least three that will reach “critical state” — when a nuclear reaction can sustain a series of continuous reactions — until on July 4, as Trump has promised, Wright said.
“This is speed, this is innovation, this is the beginning of a nuclear renaissance,” he said.
The microreactors will be for civilian and military use.
Currently, the U.S. has 94 operating nuclear reactors that generate about 19% of the nation’s electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This that’s down from 104 reactors in 2013 and includes two new commercial reactors in Georgia that were the nation’s first large reactors built from scratch.
The reactor shipped to Utah will be able to generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, according to Isaiah Taylor, CEO of Valar Atomics, the California startup that produced reactor.
The company hopes to start selling power on a trial basis next year and become fully commercial in 2028.
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Source: prizrenpost
Etiketa: Brief
