The Pentagon is fueling its push for portable nuclear power with high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, a next-generation fuel used by many advanced reactor designs. Under the Department of Defense’s Project Pele, a mobile microreactor is taking shape at Idaho National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy has described a HALEU fuel delivery to the lab in November as a key milestone for the program. Together, the reactor buildout, DOE fuel-allocation efforts, and federal actions aimed at strengthening the domestic nuclear-fuel supply chain are intended to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers.
Project Pele Takes Shape at Idaho National Laboratory
The Department of Defense broke ground on Project Pele at Idaho National Laboratory, advancing a mobile microreactor designed to provide safe, transportable power for military operations. The project falls under the Strategic Capabilities Office, and BWXT has been tapped as the manufacturer responsible for building the reactor hardware. Unlike conventional nuclear plants, which take years to construct and cannot be relocated, Project Pele is engineered to be shipped by truck, assembled on-site, and operated with minimal personnel, a profile that fits austere or contested environments where fuel logistics are vulnerable.
Advanced nuclear fuel was delivered to Idaho National Laboratory in November, a step the Department of Energy described as a major milestone for the program and a signal that the microreactor is moving from paper studies to hardware. That delivery marked progress toward a demonstration phase aimed at proving the reactor can operate on a U.S. military installation by 2030, potentially reducing reliance on diesel fuel in some deployed settings. If the prototype performs as expected, Pentagon planners envision a future in which clusters of small reactors quietly power radar sites, command posts, and expeditionary airfields without the constant drumbeat of fuel convoys.
HALEU: The Fuel That Makes Small Reactors Possible
Standard commercial reactors run on uranium enriched to roughly 3 to 5 percent U-235. HALEU pushes that concentration up to about 19.75 percent, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing material for the centrifuge facility at Piketon, Ohio. That higher enrichment level allows reactor cores to be dramatically smaller and lighter while still producing meaningful electricity and heat, which is exactly what a transportable military unit requires. With HALEU, designers can stretch refueling intervals to several years, reducing the logistical footprint and enabling reactors that arrive sealed from the factory and depart the same way when their fuel is spent.
The Department of Energy is now distributing HALEU allocations to U.S. nuclear companies, including conditional commitments aimed at advanced and microreactor programs. These allocations signal that Washington views HALEU not as a niche research material but as a strategic commodity. For the military specifically, guaranteed access to this fuel means reactor deployment timelines are no longer hostage to a single foreign enrichment provider or to the slow pace of weapons-stockpile conversion. It also gives private developers confidence that if they design around HALEU, a domestic supply will exist to support serial production rather than one-off demonstrations.
Building a Domestic Fuel Chain Under the Defense Production Act
Securing HALEU supply is only part of the challenge. The full production chain, from uranium conversion through enrichment to fuel fabrication, has long leaned on Russian-origin services. To break that dependence, the Energy Department announced plans to form a consortium using authorities under the Defense Production Act. The initiative is intended to pull private firms, national laboratories, and federal agencies into a coordinated effort that treats nuclear fuel capacity the way defense planners treat ammunition production: as a supply line too important to outsource. By aggregating demand from both civilian utilities and government customers, the consortium can underwrite the capital-intensive investments needed for new enrichment and fuel-fabrication lines.
The Defense Production Act approach gives the government tools to direct investment, guarantee purchases, and fast-track permits in ways that ordinary commercial procurement cannot. For companies like Centrus, which operates the only NRC-licensed HALEU enrichment demonstration in the country at Piketon, Ohio, the consortium structure could translate into long-term offtake agreements that justify expanding centrifuge cascades. For the Pentagon, it could help place more of the fuel pipeline for Project Pele and future military microreactors on American soil, reducing exposure to sanctions, trade disputes, or supply disruptions tied to geopolitical rivals. Over time, a robust domestic fuel chain could also lower costs for civilian utilities exploring small modular reactors, tightening the feedback loop between defense demand and commercial innovation.
Federal Energy Programs and Data Backstopping the Buildout
Behind the marquee projects and policy announcements is a growing web of federal programs designed to surface promising technologies and steer capital toward them. DOE’s Genesis platform is one example, offering a centralized gateway where energy developers can match emerging projects with financing tools, demonstration sites, and technical assistance. For companies working on microreactor components, fuel-cycle innovations, or transportable power systems, that kind of matchmaking can shorten the path from lab bench to field deployment and help align private timelines with government procurement cycles.
Equally important is the technical backbone that allows agencies and contractors to build on prior work rather than reinventing it. The Office of Scientific and Technical Information maintains a vast repository of nuclear-related research through the OSTI portal, spanning materials science, reactor physics, fuel performance, and safeguards. Designers of compact cores and shield systems can mine decades of declassified studies to validate models and avoid dead ends, while regulators can draw on the same corpus to assess novel designs. On the infrastructure side, DOE’s Infrastructure Exchange centralizes information on grants, loans, and cost-share opportunities, helping state agencies, utilities, and base commanders tap federal funds for grid upgrades and transmission links that will eventually connect microreactors to broader energy networks.
White House Executive Orders Accelerate the Timeline
Federal policy has moved in parallel with the hardware. President Trump signed nuclear-focused directives in 2025, reshaping the regulatory and investment environment for both civilian and defense programs. Separate presidential actions declared a national energy emergency and ordered agencies to rebuild the nuclear base, framing domestic nuclear capacity as a national security priority rather than a purely commercial question. That framing gives agencies latitude to treat microreactors, HALEU enrichment, and fuel-fabrication plants as critical infrastructure on par with shipyards or munitions factories.
These orders matter because they are intended to reduce bureaucratic friction at multiple points in the supply chain. They direct agencies to prioritize energy and nuclear-industrial-base actions, which supporters argue can help streamline licensing timelines, environmental reviews, and interagency coordination for designated efforts. For Project Pele specifically, the executive actions create top-cover for the kind of rapid prototyping and testing that defense technology demands but that traditional nuclear regulation was never designed to accommodate. Complementing that push, advanced research efforts such as the ARPA‑E portfolio are seeding high-risk, high-reward ideas in areas like advanced fuels, thermal management, and compact power conversion, any of which could feed into second- and third-generation military microreactors. Taken together, the fuel allocations, industrial consortia, research platforms, and executive directives indicate a concerted federal push to move portable nuclear power from concept toward demonstration and potential deployment.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
