BY RAY GRONBERG
Business North Carolina
Fort Bragg is one of five initial locations in line to get a nuclear “microreactor” in the next couple of years to help power its operations, the U.S. Army says.
The choice is an outgrowth of what the Army calls the Janus Program, and comes also with the selection of California-based Antares Nuclear to provide the reactor.
Antares is working on a system small enough to move around on a semi-truck that’s capable of putting out anywhere from 100 kilowatts to 1 megawatt of electricity.
That’s a far cry from the gigawatt-scale reactors Duke Energy uses, and even from the 300-megawatt “small modular” reactors Duke’s considering building at the Belews Creek power plant in Stokes County. It’s also far from the figure needed to meet Fort Bragg’s entire power need, which the News & Observer reported in 2022 peaks at about 132 megawatts.
But the base is no stranger to experimenting with megawatt-scale power projects, as in 2022 it cut the ribbon on a floating solar array of about that size.
Army leaders say Bragg and bases like it need power plants of their own to reduce any reliance on “potentially vulnerable external grids.” Forts Campbell, Hood, Benning and Drum are the other bases the Army picked for the program. All five are large facilities that host division-scale units or more.
The Army has also matched each of the other bases with as many different reactor builders and is backing the selections with $2.2 billion in funding. The goal is to put at least one reactor into operation by September 2028.
Antares and another of the builders, Radiant Industries (the pick for Fort Benning), are based in the Los Angeles metroplex’s South Bay. The area is home to SpaceX, and several former SpaceX execs now work in Antares’ C-suite.
Its leadership also includes Jason Andrus, a master’s graduate of N.C. State University’s nuclear engineering program. He spearheads its licensing effort.
NCSU owns and operates its own on-campus reactor, the megawatt-scale PULSTAR unit. It’s strictly a research unit and doesn’t generate electricity.
Another company picked for the program, BWXT Advanced Technologies, has an office in Charlotte’s Ballantyne area. The Babcock & Wilcox spinoff — the pick for Fort Campbell — has roots in the nuclear business that go all the way back to the Manhattan Project.
BWXT says its first job is picking a site at Fort Campbell, with an eye toward breaking ground in late 2028 and starting reactor operations in the early 2030s.
Antares has built a prototype of its reactor in Idaho and reports that it “achieved initial criticality” in early June. The company has also lined up private funding to go with the government’s money. Its leader says 2028 remains the target.
“Hitting our commitments is everything to us,” says CEO Jordan Bramble, a former White House aide. “We said criticality in 2026, electricity production in 2027 and power to the warfighter in 2028.”
