A Valar Atomics microreactor is seen on a C-17 plane, with out nuclear gasoline, at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. The reactor was transported from March Air Reserve Base to Hill Air Power Base in Utah.
Matthew Daly/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Matthew Daly/AP
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — The Pentagon and the Power Division for the primary time airlifted a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah, demonstrating what they are saying is U.S. potential to shortly deploy nuclear energy for army and civilian use.
The practically 700-mile flight final weekend — which transported a 5-megawatt microreactor with out nuclear gasoline — highlights the Trump administration’s drive to advertise nuclear vitality to assist meet skyrocketing demand for energy from synthetic intelligence and knowledge facilities, as effectively to be used by the army.
Power Secretary Chris Wright and Undersecretary of Protection Michael Duffey, who traveled with the privately constructed reactor, hailed the Feb. 15 journey on a C-17 army plane as a breakthrough for U.S. efforts to fast-track industrial licensing for the microreactors, a part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshape the nation’s vitality panorama.
A brand new emphasis on nuclear vitality
President Donald Trump helps nuclear energy — a carbon-free supply of electrical energy — as a dependable vitality supply, at the same time as he has been broadly hostile to renewable vitality and prioritizes coal and different fossil fuels to provide electrical energy.
Skeptics warn that nuclear vitality poses dangers and say microreactors is probably not protected or possible and haven’t proved they will meet demand for an affordable worth.
Power Secretary Chris Wright speaks at a information convention at March Air Reserve Base, Calif., Sunday Feb. 15, 2026.
Matthew Daly/AP
conceal caption
toggle caption
Matthew Daly/AP
Wright brushed these issues apart as he touted progress on Trump’s push for a fast escalation of nuclear energy. Trump signed a sequence of govt orders final yr that permit Wright to approve some superior reactor designs and initiatives, taking authority away from the impartial security company that has regulated the U.S. nuclear trade for 5 a long time.
“Right this moment is historical past. A multi-megawatt, next-generation nuclear energy plant is loaded within the C-17 behind us,” Wright mentioned earlier than the two-hour flight from March Air Reserve Base in California to Hill Air Power base in Utah.
The minivan-sized reactor transported by the army is certainly one of at the very least three that may attain “criticality” — when a nuclear response can maintain an ongoing sequence of reactions — by July 4, as Trump has promised, Wright mentioned.
“That is pace, that is innovation, that is the beginning of a nuclear renaissance,” he mentioned.
Microreactors could be for civilian and army use
Presently, there are 94 operable nuclear reactors within the U.S. that generate about 19% of the nation’s electrical energy, in accordance with the U.S. Power Data Administration. That is down from 104 reactors in 2013 and contains two new industrial reactors in Georgia that have been the nation’s first massive reactors constructed from scratch in a era.
Recognizing delays inherent to deployment of latest, full-scale reactors, the trade and authorities have targeted lately on extra environment friendly designs, together with a small modular reactor proposed by the nation’s largest public energy firm, the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Microreactors, designed to be transportable, can take {that a} step additional and “speed up the supply of resilient energy to the place it is wanted,” Duffey mentioned. Finally, the cellular reactors might present vitality safety on a army base with out the civilian grid, he and different officers mentioned.
The demonstration flight “will get us nearer to deploy nuclear energy when and the place it’s wanted to provide our nation’s warfighters the instruments to win in battle,” Duffey mentioned.
The reactor transported to Utah will be capable to generate as much as 5 megawatts of electrical energy, sufficient to energy 5,000 houses, mentioned Isaiah Taylor, CEO of Valar Atomics, the California startup that produced the reactor. The corporate hopes to start out promoting energy on a check foundation subsequent yr and grow to be absolutely industrial in 2028.
Some security issues have not been addressed, consultants say
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear energy security on the Union of Involved Scientists, mentioned the transport flight — which included a throng of reporters, photographers and TV information crews — was little greater than “a dog-and-pony present” that merely demonstrated the Pentagon’s potential to ship a bit of heavy gear.
The flight “does not reply any questions on whether or not the challenge is possible, financial, workable or protected — for the army and the general public,” Lyman mentioned in an interview.
The Trump administration “hasn’t made the security case” for a way microreactors, as soon as loaded with nuclear gasoline, might be transported securely to knowledge facilities or army bases, Lyman mentioned.
Officers additionally haven’t resolved how nuclear waste will probably be disposed, though Wright mentioned the Power Division is in talks with Utah and different states to host websites that would reprocess gasoline or deal with everlasting disposal.
The microreactor flown to Utah will probably be despatched to the Utah San Rafael Power Lab for testing and analysis, Wright mentioned. Gas will probably be supplied by the Nevada Nationwide Safety website, Taylor mentioned.
“The reply to vitality is all the time extra,” Wright mentioned. After 4 years of restrictions on extra polluting types of vitality beneath the Biden administration, he mentioned, “now we’re making an attempt to set every little thing free. And nuclear will probably be flying quickly.”
