There’s nothing new under the sun. And that includes the US Army’s foray into the nuclear power business.
Last week, the Army announced it will support the development and deployment of five small reactors at five of its bases. This is not new. Six decades ago, the Army was on the leading edge of nuclear power development.
From 1968 to 1976, the Army operated a nuclear powership on Gatun Lake. The MH-1A Sturgis was the world’s first floating nuclear power plant. To provide electricity in the Canal Zone, which was experiencing an extended drought, the Army Corps of Engineers converted a surplus World War II Liberty ship into a 10-megawatt powership. The conversion was completed at a shipyard in Mobile, after which the vessel was towed to Gatun Lake, where it operated safely for nearly a decade. The reactor, designed by Martin-Marietta, was a single-loop pressurized water reactor that used low-enriched uranium and generated 10 MW of electricity. The Sturgis was also outfitted with an onboard electric substation. According to the World Nuclear Association, it used 541 kg of U-235 over its operational life and had a capacity factor of 54%.
The Sturgis was one of eight small reactors developed under the Army Nuclear Power Program, which ran from 1954 to 1977. Five of the eight reactors were portable or mobile. The Army deployed the reactors in Wyoming, Greenland, Antarctica, Idaho, and Panama. The reactor deployed at Camp Century in Greenland used highly enriched uranium and had 1.5 MW of electrical output. The Sturgis, with 10 MW of output, was the largest of the program’s reactors.
Put another way, the Army was making small modular reactors before SMRs were cool. And now, after a long hiatus, the Army is, thankfully, returning to its innovative nuclear past. On August 26, it announced that under the Janus Program, it will award $2.2 billion to five companies to build reactors on five bases across the country.
The companies selected by the Army now have a valuable endorsement by one of the world’s biggest energy consumers. But as shown in SMR Intelligence US, there are now 42 companies developing 48 different reactor designs. (Eight of the pure-play SMR companies are publicly traded.) Dozens of other companies around the world are also trying to break into the SMR game.
Given that the Trump administration has said it wants the US to add 300 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2050, the potential market for SMRs and larger reactors is enormous. But even if the near-term commercial and military market is only, say, 20 GW, the winning companies could garner orders worth billions of dollars.
Last week’s selection of the five SMR companies is a welcome boost to the US nuclear sector. It also raises two obvious questions: Which ones are most likely to succeed in the commercial market? And are any of them investable?
