In an event without recent precedent, and as part of the energy self-sufficiency efforts promoted by the United States for military units, a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft transported a nuclear microreactor. The events, widely disseminated by the U.S. Departments of War and Energy, were framed within the so-called Operation Windlord.
In broad terms, Operation Windlord consisted of the transport of various elements and modules of the new Ward250 micro microreactor, developed and manufactured by the company Valar Atomics, through the use of U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, which moved it from March Air Reserve Base, in southern California, to Hill Air Force Base.
Beyond the milestone achieved with the transport of the nuclear minireactor, the execution of Operation Windlord reflects the efforts sought by the Departments of War and Energy to provide the United States Armed Forces with greater energy self-sufficiency.
What has been mentioned is not a minor detail, since the facilities for the generation, transmission, distribution, and commercialization of electric power — which drives a large part of the daily life of billions of people — are a priority target in potential conflicts, both for military and irregular forces, across various domains, ranging from traditional ones to cyberspace.
Many military units currently depend on commercial power generation and distribution networks to operate. For this reason, the United States has been evaluating the use of nuclear microreactors, such as the aforementioned Ward250, to increase the autonomy of bases and units, as well as to power those far from urban centers, operating independently of the power grid.
The development of the minireactor transported by the C-17s days ago responds to a series of directives issued under Executive Order 14301, being a new-generation 5-megawatt nuclear reactor, employing already proven and reliable technologies in the field of nuclear energy, namely: helium as coolant, graphite as moderator, and TRISO fuel (uranium kernels encapsulated in ceramic layers for greater safety).
On the occasion of this milestone, the United States Air Force and the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, Michael P. Duffey, highlighted that: “The future of warfare will be energy-intensive — he indicated — and will include artificial intelligence data centers, directed-energy weapons, as well as space and cyber infrastructure. The civilian power grid was not designed to support those demands, so the Department of War must build its own energy infrastructure.”
“Powering next-generation warfare will require us to move faster than our adversaries, to build a system that not only equips our warfighters to fight, but equips them to win at extraordinary speed,” Duffey added. “Today is a monumental step toward building that system. By supporting the industrial base and its capacity for innovation, we accelerate the delivery of resilient energy wherever it is needed.”
Lastly, and looking ahead to the next steps to follow, once the transport of the eight modules that form part of the nuclear reactor’s components is completed, the Ward 250 will be taken to the Utah San Rafael Energy Laboratory (USREL) to undergo intensive testing, projecting that: “… it will imply that by July 4 the administration expects three small reactors to reach criticality, that is, to be operating normally,” as indicated by the U.S. Air Force in its February 17 statement.
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