- The five megawatt reactor was transported from California to Utah in the back of a C-17 strategic airlifter
- Future warfare is energy-intensive, including AI data centers, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure
- Nuclear energy tests come under Project JANUS, conceived in October 2025, with the aim to build at least ten small reactors in under a year
A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft transported a small nuclear reactor nearly 700 miles from March Air Reserve Base in California to Hill Air Force base in Utah on 15 February 2026.
This five megawatt reactor, known as Ward 250 – a system which could in theory power 5,000 homes – will undergo tests at the Utah San Rafael Energy Laboratory with the aim of making the US military energy independent.
The objective is an underrated one in a threat landscape that values lethality above all else; the Department of Defense (DoD) are eager to invest in new strike options through hypersonics and small loitering munitions. Yet military success will depend on energy and logistics, as has always been the case in historic campaigns, and particularly as the US establish a forward presence in the Indo-Pacific.
Strangely, energy resilience is not listed at all in the National Defense Strategy published last month. Nevertheless, under Project JANUS, first disclosed in October 2025, the Secretary of the Army and Energy revealed plans to build ten to 12 micro nuclear reactors this year.
Pros and cons
Such a power source could provide energy security on a military base ensuring the mission there need not depend on the civilian power grid, said the DoD in a release. In military operations overseas, such reactors would eliminate fears that an enemy might cut the military’s fuel supplies.
Until now, the military has leaned on diesel generators for power, which have been sourced from vulnerable supply chains in an age when the US and China compete for critical components and resources. Likewise, nuclear energy allows bases to operate for years without need of fuel, reducing the liability of fuel convoys.
The government have explored the nuclear energy option for years, given the demonstrable efficacy of the technology in operating nuclear powered ships and submarines.
But extending the capability to a land-based micro reactor for forward operating bases in an inherently safe, transportable and rapidly deployable way amid acts of hybrid warfare will be challenging. One study from 11 years ago explained nuclear reactors have complex design requirements imposed by the transport of neutrons that induce fission, which have long restricted efforts to reduce the size of a practical reactor.
Future warfare is energy intensive
The government has only ever toyed with the concept, always too conscious of the finciancal and safety risks entailed in deploying small nuclear reactors around the world. But new demands on the military require a more efficient and long lasting power source.
The future of warfare is energy-intensive, observed Michael P. Duffey, the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, a Pentagon official whose influence expanded last week following the realignment of DSCA and DTSA now under his purview.
Waging conflict now requires artificial intelligence data centres, directed-energy weapons, and space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not built for that, Duffey continued, and so the Department will need to build its own energy infrastructure.
“Powering next generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that doesn’t just equip our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey said. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity to innovate, we accelerate the delivery of resilient power to where it’s needed.”
This goes for Europe too amid fears the continent may lapse, once again, back into Russia’s oil trade. To this end, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced steps toward building nuclear power plants in Central Europe, during a visit to Bratislava and Budapest over the weekend. This will leverage American nuclear energy technologies, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s aim to reverse the atrophy of the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure.
Transportability
The transportability of the reactor is itself a noteworthy accomplishment, indicating the safe containment and compactness of a small nuclear reactor.
The mean by which it was deployed, the US Air Force’s primary strategic airlifter, the C-17A, of which there are 222 aircraft according to the analytics firm GlobalData, would provide a sufficient means of deployment to areas of strategic interest around the world.
In fact, this scale could be seen early last week when it was reported that more than a 100 of these airlifters were moving toward the Middle East, perhaps indicative of another chapter of American intervention in Iran.
At present, however, it is said that the Trump administration will have overseen the construction of at three small reactors by 4 July this year, an opportunity for the US government to celebrate their independence in more sense than one.
