Free Republic

For the past half century, successive Presidential administrations and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have thwarted the development of advanced reactor designs...That all changed last May, when President Trump issued four executive orders aimed at reinvigorating the U.S. nuclear energy industry.

Under the new program, the Defense Department will build a 1-5 MegaWatts nuclear microreactor at Idaho National Laboratory for a three-year (minimum) test operational period. It will be “the first electricity-generating Generation IV nuclear reactor built in the United States,” the Defense Department said in a statement. “The first electricity-generating Generation IV nuclear reactor demonstrated in the world was the HTR-PM, a Chinese reactor, which first reached criticality in September 2021.” “The DOD uses approximately 30 terawatt-hours of electricity per year and more than 10 million gallons of fuel per day—levels that are only expected to increase due to anticipated...