Army to spend $2B to build nuclear microreactors at 5 bases as US seeks to ramp up nuclear power - AP News

The U.S. Army plans to spend $2 billion building nuclear microreactors at five military bases stretching from New York to Texas, giving those installations an energy source that runs independent of the commercial electric grid.

The announcement came Wednesday as the Trump administration accelerates a broader push to expand nuclear power across the country. The program is part of a larger federal effort that includes billions in loans for large-scale nuclear reactors aimed at meeting surging power demand from data centers, alongside a pilot program to advance next-generation reactor technology.

The five bases selected have not been named, but the Army framed the microreactors as a reliability play, not just an environmental one. Military installations that depend on the civilian grid carry real vulnerability in a power outage or grid attack. A self-contained reactor changes that equation entirely.

For folks in Lubbock, this matters more than it might seem. Dyess Air Force Base sits about 150 miles south in Abilene, and the broader West Texas military footprint is significant. If any of the five selected bases land in this region, the construction and operational contracts that follow tend to ripple outward into surrounding economies.

The $2 billion price tag puts this nuclear buildout in roughly the same cost range as some of the country's largest recent highway infrastructure packages.