Five advanced nuclear companies will build, own, and operate more than 20 commercial microreactors across five United States Army installations under the Janus Program, with the first project targeted for useful service by September 2028.
The selections are BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Radiant Industries at Fort Benning, Georgia, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Texas, Antares Nuclear at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum, New York. The vendors will draw on up to 2.2 billion dollars in Army investment through fiscal year 2031 under fixed-price, milestone-based Other Transaction Authority agreements.
Radiant secured the largest Janus agreement, worth up to 750 million dollars, to develop and deploy 15 Kaleidos microreactors across military installations by 2030. The first three-unit deployment is planned for Fort Benning, and the first Janus units are expected to supply power in 2028. The 1-megawatt-electric Kaleidos is factory-built, arrives sealed and fueled, requires no cooling water, carries a 20-year operating life, and can run up to five years between refuelings.
Radiant is building a 300,000 square foot manufacturing, fueling, and storage campus in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and plans to keep fueling, refueling, and spent-fuel storage off customer installations. Standard Nuclear will fabricate Department of Energy allocated HALEU into TRISO particle fuel for Radiant under a binding agreement announced August 20 and running through 2031.
BWXT will deploy a 20-megawatt-electric high-temperature gas reactor at Fort Campbell using uranium oxycarbide TRISO enriched to 19.75 percent, with groundbreaking targeted for late 2028. BWXT is the only Janus vendor that self-supplies its TRISO fuel, from its licensed Lynchburg, Virginia plant, where it has authorized more than 25 million dollars to more than double output. General Atomics will advance a liquid-metal-cooled reactor at Fort Hood rated at roughly 5 megawatts-electric and scalable to about 20. Antares will build a three-unit installation at Fort Bragg.
Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said at an August 26 media roundtable that the bidder field was narrowed to 10 finalists, each then subjected to four hours of questioning by experts from the Department of Energy, the national laboratories, academia, industry, and the military services.
Source: POWER Magazine - https://www.powermag.com/the-janus-five-20-commercial-nuclear-microreactors-starting-in-2028/