The Army and Department of Energy will collaborate in the development and install microreactors on Army installations in the United States, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Energy Secretary Christopher Wright announced Oct. 14.
Jeff Waksman is the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment. He said that the new “Janus Program” is named after the Roman god of transition. It is an initiative that represents a “transition from prototypes to fully commercial nuclear power to provide energy resilience for our soldiers.” Waksman moderated the discussion about the Janus Program at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition.
According to an Army statement released prior to the discussion, the program will provide “resilient, secure, and assured energy to support national defense installations and critical missions.”
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.” The Janus Program is the “first big step toward having the U.S. Army work with the private sector” and other U.S. government agencies to “push forward nuclear energy for our country.”
Wright mentioned that 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, giving rise to the nuclear power industry, Waksman said.
Wright said that the current U.S. Navy submarine fleet is powered by nuclear reactors that don’t need to be refueled for “the life of the submarine.” This changed the game for submarine warfare. “I think we can do the same thing with our Army, with small reactors that can be deployed in all different settings.”
However, the Army’s program will not be, in Waksman’s words, a “Navy 2.0” program. As part of the Janus Program, nuclear reactors “will be commercially owned and operated” with the Army providing oversight, Waksman said, adding that that arrangement makes it unique.
The DoE is supporting the project in three ways. The first way is to collaborate 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 nuclear reactors burn, or the highly enriched uranium used to fuel nuclear submarines and enable nuclear weapons. No U.S. company currently produce the fuel, also known as HALEU. Wright said that “We can fix that.”
Second, prototype nuclear 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, maybe “before July 4th.”
And third, the DoE will provide regulatory reform. Wright continued that over the years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is responsible for the safety of U,S. nuclear power plants, gradually changed its priorities from “safety, safety, safety” to “bureaucracy, bureaucracy and safety.” That will change, he said.