Posted on 10/24/2021 2:20:44 PM PDT by algore
The U.S. Air Force recently announced that it has picked Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska as the base to host a new small nuclear reactor as part of a pilot program.
The U.S. military, as a whole, together with the Department of Energy has been increasingly looking into micro-reactor designs as possible ways to meet ever-growing electricity demands, including for units on the battlefield, as well as to help cut costs and improve general operational efficiency by reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The Department of the Air Force announced the selection of Eielson as the host facility for this pilot reactor on Oct. 18, 2021. The base is situated deep within the interior of Alaska near the city of Fairbanks and is around 110 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
It is home to the active-duty 354th Fighter Wing, which flies F-35A Joint Strike Fighters and F-16 Viper aggressor jets, as well as the Alaska Air National Guard's 168th Air Refueling Wing with its KC-135 tankers, among other units.
“Energy is a critical asset to ensure mission continuity at our installations,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety, and Infrastructure Mark Correll said in a statement.
“Micro-reactors are a promising technology for ensuring energy resilience and reliability, and are particularly well-suited for powering and heating remote domestic military bases like Eielson AFB.”
I want one...
Especially since our Dem pols want us to depend on solar and wind, which means freezing in the dark.
This is how they are going to keep the elite going after they cut off the rest of us.
Hope it turns out better than the mess they left at Ft Greeley, just down the road...
You can get a SMR from GE Hitachi. A 300 MW unit would cost $1.5 billion.
These mini-nuke things should be sprinkled all over America. They’re cheap, efficient, and can be built quickly.
Lots of villages in Alaska get all of their electricity from diesel Caterpillar engines/generators. They use a LOT of expensive fuel. (Well, the fuel is bad enough, it is the cost of getting it to them that is really expensive!)
“The Department of the Air Force announced the selection of Eielson as the host facility for this pilot reactor because it’s in the middle of nowhere, and nobody cares about Alaska anyways”.
And, Ft. Wainright. Heck, they built base housing on a toxic waste site.
Yeah, these “mini nukes” could be a real game changer — provided they can be made idiot-proof. Otherwise we’re likely to see mini Chernobyls dotting the landscape.
So a 5 kW one would be $2.5 million?
Muslim magnets.
A 1950’s science fiction movie about to happen
“So a 5 kW one would be $2.5 million?”
Something like that. Smallest I’ve heard of though is 20MW.
Might want to pool your recources with your neighbors for one of those though.
There’s a lot of old military facilities like that.
Usually its not the building of the facility on the dump it’s the dump grows over time in the facility particularly in the old ones. In the old days when the war ended and you were told to get rid of the excess POL & ammo supplies no one much cared how you did it.
Amen.. let’s have at least as many as France. A little disconcerting that it is controlled by the military. A woke, maybe not so citizen friendly military.
I think the USAF had a reactor back in the ‘60s at their base in Greenland. Everything that is old is new again.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.