Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A remote Air Force base in Alaska is getting its own Micro Nuclear Reactor

If all goes according to plan, the micro reactor will be online at Eielson Air Force Base by 2027.

On August 31, the Air Force announced that a California company called Oklo would design, construct, own, and operate a micro nuclear reactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. The contract will potentially run for 30 years, with the reactor intended to go online in 2027 and produce energy through the duration of the contract. Should the reactor prove successful, the hope is that it will allow other Air Force bases to rely on modular miniature reactors to augment their existing power supply, lessening reliance on civilian energy grids and increasing the resiliency of air bases.

Located less than two degrees south of the Arctic Circle, Eielson may appear remote on maps centered on the continental United States, but its northern location allows it to loom over the Pacific Ocean. A full operational squadron of F-35A stealth jet fighters are based at Eielson, alongside KC-135 jet tankers that offer air refueling. As the Department of Defense orients towards readiness for any conflict with what it describes as the “pacing challenge” of China, the ability to reliably get aircraft into the sky quickly and reliably extends to ensuring that bases can have electrical power at all times.

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Guess those solar panels aren't working out


F-35 fighter jets at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska in March, 2022.

Stupid to have an outside contractor do it. The USN operates more reactors than anybody else. They could do a joint venture with the USN for a Westinghouse reactor system like we use on carriers and subs and have navy personnel run it. But the USAF has always been a money pit.

Maybe they saw how bad the Navy has gotten at maneuvering ships over the last few years and felt the civilian sector was less risky…

Eilson far from being remote…

"may appear remote on maps centered on the continental United States"

It's a relative thing.

I guess you're too damn dumb to know the difference between maneuvering a ship and operating a power plant. Let me guess, you don't know a damn thing about the USN but you just had to show how stupid you are.

This is yuge news or would be if the town Arco Idaho hadn't been powered by a small reactor in 1955.

Wo Pard, ph ucking Wo take it down a notch Pard..

There was a news bit years ago, about the development of "micro reactors" 7-10 years ago. To power "local communities". Being installed in SE Asia, Vietnam I think. Self contained units buried in the ground. Don't recall the corporate entity working on them. Never saw any follow-up news on how that worked out.

Would be interesting to know the expected Kilowatt-hour cost of electricity on this venture though.

Lol

The Navy reactors are actually a good bit larger than needed for the small single digit MW numbers needed for most military bases.

And I don't think it's a bad idea for customers with bottomless pockets to drive these new designs to commercialization. It will just give us more options for energy security down the road when all the blind optimism for wind and solar dissipates.

Thanks Rufus for keeping the strategy in it's proper perspective.

several universities have micro reactors....

Was.gonna say, Eielson ain't very remote .....close enough to civilization that a Big Mac attack.can be cured in 15 min

Correct. When I lived down in Salcha, I would drive by the runway twice a day. Often watched F15s? take off at the same time.

Their bx has goofy ass hours though.

There's a federal atomic lab out in the desert in so. Idaho. It's been there for many years and did a lot of work developing the ship reactors. They've been working on what they call a small modular reactor for some time. It's small town size but designed to be either stand alone or connected together for larger cities.
I haven't heard much about what they have going with it. It's about impossible to get any info on what they're doing out there.

That's because they are not actually DOING anything out there, and haven't for more than 30 years. Just another government boondoggle of epic proportions.

When they say they are "working on" something, it's one overpaid engineer giving a presentation on a South African pebble bed reactor design to other over paid engineers.

Could also be that the USN reactor technology is say, a couple decades older than what is being used by Oklo? Not sure, as I am not sure what technology is used by USN. But seeing as how the USN is still using Windows XP ( extremely mature and hardened) you could say they’re not on the cutting technological edge.