The Army and Department of Energy will work together to develop and install microreactors on Army installations in the United States, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Energy Secretary Christopher Wright announced Oct. 14.

Dubbed the Janus Program, after the Roman god of transition, the initiative represents a “transition from prototypes to fully commercial nuclear power to provide energy resilience for our soldiers,” said Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, who moderated the discussion at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition.

The program will provide “resilient, secure, and assured energy to support national defense installations and critical missions,” according to an Army statement released prior to the discussion.

Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, Driscoll emphasized that modern warfare is at an “inflection point,” where “how we inflict violence on each other and how we will defend against that violence has changed.” In that vein, the Janus Program is the “first big step toward having the United States Army work with the private sector” and other government agencies to “push forward nuclear energy for our country.”

Wright highlighted the Army’s development during World War II of the first atomic weapon, which eventually led to a commercial nuclear program in the U.S.

In 1957, the Army built the first nuclear reactor to be connected to a commercial power grid at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, sparking the nuclear power industry, Waksman said.

The current U.S. Navy submarine fleet is powered by reactors that don’t need to be refueled for “the life of the submarine,” Wright said. Nuclear submarines “changed the game,” he added. “I think we can do the same thing with our Army, with small reactors that can be deployed in all different settings.”

But the Army’s program will not be, in Waksman’s words, a “Navy 2.0” program. Under the Janus Program, reactors “will be commercially owned and operated” with the Army providing oversight, Waksman said, adding that that alone makes it unique.

The Department of Energy is supporting the project in three ways: the first is to partner with the Army to develop a program to produce the “high-assay, low-enriched uranium,” fuel that microreactors need to function. Unlike low enriched uranium that traditional light water reactors use, or the highly enriched uranium used to fuel nuclear submarines and enable nuclear weapons, no U.S. firms currently produce the fuel, also known as HALEU. “We can fix that,” Wright said.

Second, prototype reactors will undergo testing at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory before being installed on an Army installation. Wright said that at least one microreactor will “go critical,” meaning producing a sustained chain reaction, next year, perhaps “before July 4.”

And third, the department will provide regulatory reform. Wright said that over the years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, responsible for the safety of American nuclear power plants, gradually changed its priorities from “safety, safety, safety” to “bureaucracy, bureaucracy and safety.” That will change, he said.

Driscoll said the Army is uniquely positioned to undertake a project like this because of its willingness to “take risk on behalf of the American people.”

— Tom McCuin