US Army awards up to $2.2 billion for microreactors at five bases

The Department of the Army selected five nuclear vendors on August 26, 2026 to build and run microreactors at five bases under its Janus Program, the Army announced: Antares Nuclear at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Texas; Radiant Industries at Fort Benning, Georgia; and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum, New York. The awards, made in partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit (styled the "Department of War Innovation Unit" in the Army release), total up to a combined $2.2 billion across fiscal 2027 through 2031, paid out only as vendors hit technical milestones. With vendor capital invested alongside, the Army expects more than 20 microreactors will be built across military installations, with additional Army and other-service sites to be announced later.

Contractor-owned reactors on federal land

The reactors will be entirely owned, constructed, and operated by the vendors, a model the Army compares to NASA's approach to commercial spaceflight: shared development costs, financial risk shifted to the private sector, government oversight retained. The awards are Other Transactions Authority agreements negotiated after a DIU solicitation, with a selection panel drawing on the Department of Energy, the national laboratories, and the services. The Army's Fort Drum announcement describes the machines as compact systems generating under 20 megawatts of electricity on less than five acres; AP reports each reactor will provide between 1 MW and 20 MW depending on the design, that Antares and Radiant plan to deliver theirs in three-packs, and that the bases will stay connected to the commercial grid, which the reactors are meant to back up rather than replace. The Army's current fallback for critical infrastructure is diesel, which, per AP's account of a press call with principal deputy assistant secretary Jeff Waksman, the Army may not be able to move easily where needed in a conflict. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had asked the Army to select Fort Drum, AP notes.

Licensed by the Army, not the NRC

The program answers Executive Order 14299 of May 2025, which directs the Army to have an advanced reactor operating on a domestic military installation by September 30, 2028; the Army says that first reactor will be regulated by the Army itself. AP reports the reactors will be licensed by the Army rather than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses commercial reactors, and that Waksman says the Army is aligning its processes with the NRC's so vendors can pursue commercial licenses later without major design changes. The bypass has critics: Alan J. Kuperman of the University of Texas at Austin told AP the program uses the military's "deep pockets to provide a hidden subsidy" to nuclear companies lacking private customers, and called Army licensing "a dangerous scam on many levels." On waste, the Army says spent fuel will not be stored permanently on post: used fuel remains on site only for a federally mandated cooldown before moving to Department of Energy or national-laboratory facilities. Per AP, the removal deal with the Energy Department is still being worked out.

The grid angle

No nuclear microreactor supplies power to the commercial grid in the United States today, per AP. Janus picks up from the Pentagon's Project Pele mobile-reactor effort and DOE's Reactor Pilot Program, under which Antares reached a milestone that could allow it to produce electricity at Idaho National Laboratory in 2027, according to AP. Waksman's stated bar for success is commercial: the program succeeds, he said, only when multiple companies have reliable, affordable microreactors they can sell to buyers beyond the military. The Army also says it wants continued collaboration with utilities on utility-scale, grid-facing generation sited on Army installations, which would put Army land in the power market rather than just Army load. The service has history here: a reactor at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, completed in 1957, was the first nuclear power reactor to feed a US commercial grid for an extended period, per the Army Corps of Engineers via AP. Sixty-nine years later, the Army is starting over, five vendors at a time.