Army details plans to put nuclear reactors on 10 bases

The Army says it will install small nuclear reactors as power plants on 10 bases as it effort they’re calling Project Janus — a name chosen for its reference to the Roman god of doorways or, more philosophically, transitions.

“This is about the transition from prototypes to fully commercial nuclear power to provide energy resilience with our soldiers,” said Jeff Waksman, principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment said Tuesday at the annual conference of the Association of the U.S. Army in Washington D.C.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said at AUSA that nuclear power is part of the military’s look at other more sustainable energy sources that can be used in a large-scale conflict. 

“If you think about our engagement in the conflict in the Indo-Pacific, it is not going to be like a war we’ve had in the last 40 or 50 years,” Driscoll said. “We are going to need energy on the actual objective. We’re going to need to be able to access power like we have never needed it before.”

The goal of Project Janus is to have small nuclear reactors powering parts of military installations at 10 bases in the U.S. by 2027 and 2028, Col. Marty Meiners told Task & Purpose. The Army will be putting out more information on program details in the coming weeks. 

Project Janus is part of a larger effort to bolster the U.S. nuclear industry. While the U.S. is still the largest producer of nuclear energy, Wright said he expects to see rapid growth in nuclear energy in the next 10 to 15 years. 

“We should produce so much energy that all the industry wants to come back to the United States that we can supply energy to all our allies so they can try and buy it from their friends and not their foes,” Wright said. “We should have an energy advantage over every country in the world, because energy is not one sector of the economy. It’s the sector of the economy that enables everything.”

A nuclear future for military power source

The Army’s move to nuclear energy mirrors efforts in other branches. In 2021, the Air Force launched a pilot program and selected Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska to host a new small nuclear reactor to test alternative energy sources.

In June 2024, Defense Innovation Unit, DIU, and the Army put out a call to private companies looking for nuclear power sources with the plan “to quickly access and ramp nuclear micro-reactor energy commercial capabilities that can be scaled up for deployment at Defense installations.” Officials said in a release that Project Janus would also be a partnership with DIU.

Then in May, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Defense to begin operating Army-regulated nuclear reactors at domestic bases by Sept. 30, 2028.

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Wright said that the U.S. is planning to work with commercial partners who are already developing modular and transportable nuclear reactors that can be flown in a C-17, sit on the back of a flatbed truck, and “not in the too far future,” can be forward deployed and supply multiple megawatts of power.

“This sounds like a dream or a fantasy. We do it today. Think of nuclear submarines,” Wright said. “That changed the game for submarines, changed the game for our Navy. And I think we can do the same thing with our Army, with small reactors that can be deployed in all different settings.”