Nuclear Developer Proposes Using Navy Reactors For Data Centers 96
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Financial Post: A Texas power developer is proposing to repurpose nuclear reactors from Navy warships to power the United States grid as the Trump administration pushes to secure massive amounts of energy for the artificial intelligence boom. HGP Intelligent Energy LLC filed an application to the Energy Department to redirect two retired reactors to a data center project proposed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, according to a letter submitted to the agency's Office of Energy Dominance Financing. The project, filed for the White House's Genesis Mission, would produce about 450-520 megawatts of around-the-clock electricity, or enough to power roughly 360,000 homes. The proposal would rewire reactors from naval vessels, originally built by Westinghouse Electric Company and General Electric, at a fraction of the cost of new builds.
According to the report, The developer expects to seek a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and raise roughly $1.8-$2.1 billion in private capital to prepare the reactors for civilian use, targeting initial completion by 2029. The approach is technically feasible but would break new ground by adapting military nuclear assets for the commercial grid. Bloomberg first reported the story.
According to the report, The developer expects to seek a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and raise roughly $1.8-$2.1 billion in private capital to prepare the reactors for civilian use, targeting initial completion by 2029. The approach is technically feasible but would break new ground by adapting military nuclear assets for the commercial grid. Bloomberg first reported the story.
greenwashing it with powered homes numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
while all that electricity is for feeding our AI overlords.
One day our AI overlords will figure out that they are competing with those pesky homes and their inhabitants.
Re: greenwashing it with powered homes numbers (Score:5, Informative)
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One day our AI overlords will figure out that they are competing with those pesky homes and their inhabitants.
Not for long. Nvidia has announced they are investing in orbital data centers [nvidia.com] that are solar powered and use space as a heat sink. These will predominantly be for AI workloads.
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Good, can we exile Muck, LeCunt, Scam Altman, and the rest of the AI bros to space along with their data centers?
lols, anyone else you want to send? Pukin, Forest Trump, Xi Pig who's disdain for the letter n has an unfortunate affect on his name?
but they are out of stock of T-437 safety command (Score:2, Funny)
but they are out of stock of T-437 safety command consoles
Naval reactors are safe, right? (Score:3)
https://x.com/MikeyDiMercurio/... [x.com]
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They are also a big contributor to non-proliferation, needing no highly enriched uranium and stuff.
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I've never really got that, even working in nuclear non proliferation for a while.
I get it if a country without nukes is looking to enrich "for the plants", but in a country like the US which already has more nukes than it knows what to do with, having reactors needing highly enriched fuel doesn't do much. And for a country like Japan they are clearly holding at a point where they could have probably the world's best nuclear tipped ICBM in 6 months, without navy style reactors.
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The idea is basically that civilian reactors have less oversight due to generally more relaxed procedures, so the weapon grade fissile material could be stolen.
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Well, to steal it you have to take it out of the reactor. ... ...
I get shutting it down does not go unnoticed.
And, against popular believe in some Yahoo countries: the thieves would not get very far
With some bad luck they die on the way to the car or truck before they are able to open the trunk.
Sure, if they find enough brave idiots, they could make a bucket chain from the core to the trunk of the truck
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You are thinking too small. The fuel isn't magically appearing inside the reactor - it is processed, transported and only then loaded. Plenty of opportunities to steal it en route.
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Of course.
However I left that intentionally out, to not give readers glowing ideas.
Alas, you spoiled it!
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Despite all "sanctions", the ruzzkie pederation has no problem whatsoever to buy any semiconductor needed to manufacture the rockets they rain on Ukraine every day.
I can easily see how commercially available uranium, enriched to the levels necessary for the submarine reactors, finds its way to any customer with deeper pockets through the same routes.
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You're confusing illegal sanctions unilaterally declared by the US/EU that 2/3 of the countries in the world (representing 80% of the world's population) are free to ignore with actual legal internationally accepted controls. One of these things is not like the other.
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spasiba, comrade.
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You're confusing illegal sanctions unilaterally declared by the US/EU
Sanctions unilaterally declared by a multilateral group (also including the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Japan, Australia and others)! Did you stretch before those mental gymnastics?
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Just verbally lazy. Unilateral sanctions which have been imposed by the US, and other unilateral sanctions imposed by the EU as a single body. There are other sanctions imposed unilaterally by various individual countries, but they're unimportant in comparison to the damage that the other two sets of them have done to the economies of the EU.
In any case, unilateral sanctions are illegal no matter who is imposing them.
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but they're unimportant in comparison to the damage that the other two sets of them have done to the economies of the EU
Nothing compared to the damage it's done to Russia.
In any case, unilateral sanctions are illegal no matter who is imposing them.
Ah yes, that's the real crime here, sanctions. Nothing about you know invading a peaceful neighbour and the wide scale murder as a result of that. Plus you know who says they're illegal? Russia?
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So you really don't know much if anything about the actual situation, either before the conflict started or now. Good to know.
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Well you've conveniently failed to make any claims, presumably because you know they're bullshit and easily shot down.
No matter your slathering over Putin, Ukraine is a sovereign country, and the invasion of Russia was completely illegal. Fortunately for everyone else (though not Ukraine), this has essentially resulted in Russia becoming a spent military force. What we've learned is a lot of their stuff is not nearly so good as they said it was. And just to hammer home they point, they've burned through mos
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If you haven't actually bothered to educate yourself about the situation further than the MSM then I'm not going to even attempt to, so no, I'm not bothering to waste my time "making any claims" that you will dismiss without investigating to see whethet they're true or not.
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That's a very neat way of absolving yourself from making any claims, while conveniently making grand statements which have nothing of substance to actually refute.
If you can't make any concrete claim then you are admitting publicly that your are full of shit.
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Says who?
The United Nations, and several treaties that have been signed and ratified by the US government.
As Article VI, Section 2 of the US Constitution says:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made , or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land
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all the civilized countries
IOW "I'm a racist pig who looks down on non-Europeans".
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Yes they are quite safe. They also run on highly enriched uranium. Space is rather important on a submarine so a small reactor is important.
There are a hundred S5W reactors plants buried in Hanford. The S6G reactors from the 688 class boats are being decommissioned at the moment. They have twice the power capacity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Wikipedia articles used to be more informative but I suppose that someone from the Navy checks up on them and dumbs them down
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That is a nice overview for idiots who did not learn the basics how a reactor works in school.
However: that is not what happened in Chernobyl.
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That post shows they are perfectly safe, despite all human fuckups layers of redundancy worked to keep the situation from becoming unsafe.
Also god I wish Twitter would re-introduce its character limit.
I have a better and more realistic proposal (Score:3)
Electricity rationing for the masses to make more juice available to the data center.
Let's see which will come around first.
Re: I have a better and more realistic proposal (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that resource misallocation due to the "AI" horseshit is real and already harmful, while the "oogabooga bad environmentalist" horseshit story of the right-wing nut jobs are a fantasy, akin to their other fantasies of "the white man is replaced", "the christian is persecuted" and "my gun collection is here to defend the fredumbz".
Plenty of persecution of Christians (Score:2, Offtopic)
Try attending a church that the government doesn't like in China, Saudi, Iran or North Korea. Yes, there's a valid debate what is happening in Nigeria, whether the ethnic conflict is religious or economically driven. And overly touchy American Christians who shout persecution when their boss takes exception to their adding religious material to their phone greeting are an embarrassment.
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It is power driven, like everywhere.
Religious people in general do not really care about other peoples religion. At least not enough to go to war over it. .... but that is it.
It is an issue if you marry, or try to, for some religions
The war mongers in Africa want their own state. Their warriors want a female to fuck, or even to marry legally: but they can't as they are to poor to approach a woman. So it is a win win lose situation: kidnap some girls marry them to the best warriors, rape the rest, and finall
Let's try this again (Score:1)
1) My main focus is on the current persecution of Christians by state authorities such as North Korea and China. What has your response to do with that?
2) On the matter of Islam let me introduce you to some lesser known material from their religious books.
'The Qu'ran states:
And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. 4:24
So how do we understand the phrase 'those their right hand possess'? The answer is provided by the context in which those verses of the Quran w
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There is no prosecution of any religion in China.
About the rest of your post: I have no idea.
Point is that Christianity, Islam and few other religions: believe in the same god.
So your: Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus only makes sense in a change of way of life: it is still worshipping the same (false?) god.
No prosecution of any religion in China (Score:2)
Really? Some really reliable sources here. Or am I to assume you work for the MSS?
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/1... [nytimes.com]
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/12... [npr.org]
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/a... [nbcnews.com]
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Did you read your links?
First link already has it in the headline: "unofficial churches". I stopped right there, did not bother your other links. I bet they are the same :P
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So you are arguing that 'unofficial churches' are not a religion? Really?
No - the state does not have the right to decide what is legitimate in religion.
Chinese Constitution:
'Article 36 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief.
No State organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.
The State protects normal re
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Bear more children, then.
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I'm voting Invisible Spaghetti Monster.
Re:I have a better and more realistic proposal (Score:5, Insightful)
Electricity rationing for the masses to make more juice available to the data center.
Let's see which will come around first.
My own prediction is that if the AI Data Centers, require as much energy as powers the rest of the world, it isn't going to work. Resurrecting old nuclear plants, building Data Centers in space, have they considered waste heat? Pipe dreams.
If the energy requirements do not come down, The present vision of AI and its datacenters won't work.
I also have concerns about those resurrected decommissioned nuclear power plants run by companies that have as their priorities, next quarters profits.
Now, as for the naval reactors - they are run by very dedicated, smart and highly trained young people. I have a bit of trouble believing that the profit driven centers will be able to duplicate that level of competence.
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Nobody gives a flying fuck about your "predictions", dumbfuck.
Give mommy and day back their laptop. Make sure you delete those special pictures that make your wee-wee hard. And for gawd's sake, clean up after yourself.
Odd alliances (Score:2)
The technology companies now have "inconvenient task" of telling their environmentalist allies that the pollution and heat caused by AI data center electricity use is OK.
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The technology companies now have "inconvenient task" of telling their environmentalist allies that the pollution and heat caused by AI data center electricity use is OK.
True dat. Completely changes river ecosystems, the ponds outside nuclear plants attempt to cool the water from where they got it - usually a river. We live in a world where some claim that commercial and corporate running is ethical, while public utilities are all corrupt. And when teh boss comes down to tell you they need you to ignore the safety warnings because they have a deadline or profit margin to meet - we'll see.
Why not weapons grade U-235 in civilian reactors? (Score:4, Informative)
I can't read those linked articles, so I don't know if it's covered in there
AFAIK, Navy reactors use uranium enriched to 93-97% U-235.
That's weapons grade uranium. Unless they plan to run on somewhtat less enriched uranium than the navy uses, it's not going to happen.
Re: Why not weapons grade U-235 in civilian reacto (Score:1)
I can't decide, have you uncovered a fatal flaw in this proposal, or are you just wrong? Your failure to even read the source document sorta makes me think it's the latter...
Re: Why not weapons grade U-235 in civilian reacto (Score:5, Insightful)
The assertion about the fuel used in US naval reactors is correct: the navy uses highly enriched uranium for fuel (HUE).
The only other use of HUE in a commercial power reactor anywhere in the world at any time (that we know of: who knows what heinous things the Soviets really did,) was Fort St. Vrain in Colorado in the 80s. That was a weird reactor with an experimental design, and a short operating life.
Such naval reactors are extremely compact, extremely power dense and deliberately primitive, relative to typical commercial fission systems. The fuel lasts for roughly 2 decades in naval service. That is, however, a naval application which is not 100% 24/7/365. I suspect in commercial power operation the fuel will not last as long, but I'm not certain.
I think this is pure bullshit. I suspect this is a clever bunch of grifters pushing a story just plausible enough to possibly shake some money out of the DOE subsidy tree. The following problems are self-evident:
1. Naval reactors are a very different animal than commercial power reactors. The NRC regulatory regime is built around commercial designs and some miraculous regulatory upheaval would be required to accept naval designs into commercial operation.
2. Reactor fuel: there is no regulatory path for supplying HEU to commercial operators. Such a thing would have to be created, despite violent, and not easiliy overcome, opposition: it's bomb fuel. The physics allow for LEU in such reactors, but then all the "reuse" saving become costs to certify and (frequently) fuel such a thing.
3. This scheme has every appearance of what NRC Directory Dale Klein had in mind in 2007 when he coined the "No Bozos" concept: the NRC doesn't tolerate nuclear stuff done on "telsa time" by nuclear newbies.
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The NRC regulatory regime is built around commercial designs and some miraculous regulatory upheaval would be required to accept naval designs into commercial operation.
You mean perhaps involving a sharpie?
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A sharpie certified for use in nuclear power plants, at the very least.
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Such naval reactors are extremely compact, extremely power dense and deliberately primitive, relative to typical commercial fission systems. The fuel lasts for roughly 2 decades in naval service. That is, however, a naval application which is not 100% 24/7/365. I suspect in commercial power operation the fuel will not last as long, but I'm not certain.
And they take highly skilled techs to run them safely. And their purpose is not profit driven. There is not a whole lot of margin for error. There are no mental health days, or 4 day weeks. And people who are prepared to die if they have to, saving the ship.
I think this is pure bullshit. I suspect this is a clever bunch of grifters pushing a story just plausible enough to possibly shake some money out of the DOE subsidy tree. The following problems are self-evident:
Bullshit indeed. It smells like the fusion power next year people pivoting to the next new grift. Naval reactors are a different animal, built differently, fueled differently, and run by elites. And yes, it will be quite the trick to get HUE approved fo
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That is, however, a naval application which is not 100% 24/7/365.
Not 100%, but 90%.
They are typical _baseload_ plants, they do not adjust output. They keep it constant.
So they would be run the same and last the same in a commercial scenario.
However they are below 200MW thermal power output. Which makes them close to useless for grand scale commercial use.
A commercial nuclear reactor is in the 0.5GW range, and the modern constructions are around 1GW.
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They are typical _baseload_ plants, they do not adjust output. They keep it constant.
Good to know. I suppose when your surrounded by the biggest heatsink on the planet, dumping excess energy is solved pretty easily.
Which makes them close to useless for grand scale commercial use.
The take I had was that this would be used for data centers, as opposed to the public grid. 200MW is actually in the ballpark for these.
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Well, looking at the 200MW output, running them constantly on high output, and powering a data center with it, you have a point. I was not thinking about the purpose, more about the reactor in itself.
Re: Why not weapons grade U-235 in civilian reacto (Score:4, Insightful)
Your failure to even read the source document sorta makes me think it's the latter...
One link was completely unreasonable to access and the other won't without turning off the ad blocker, which I'm not willing to do.
Therefore: Without analyzing the articles provided:
US and UK Naval reactors do indeed use weapons grade U235 (Highly Enriched Uranium, or HEU vs. Low Enriched Uranium, or LEU)
There was a November 2016 analysis someone got, and while the summary and analysis of that report was mostly just black ink (redacted) it did point out that LEU wasn't efficient enough for use in subs give current parameters. Others say the math says it could be done, but would require a larger foot print due to the reduced capacity in not using HEU. I think the real driving factor here is "government loan guarantees" and using HEU reactors is simply a way to "make it make sense" to have the government hand out another three to six billion to corporations for free. (You know it'll get that high despite the lower estimates).
Personally, I'm not comfortable with weapons grade material in civilian installations, especially given the ping pong like migration of the OEMs from one set of MIC corporations to another, and the cost conscious attitude of private equity firms. At least the Navy has all the money it wants to maintain the things, PE won't provide it. We know that because it happens every damn time we turn around.
LEU is impractical in naval reactors (Score:4, Interesting)
Naval reactors need to be compact, have high power density, and respond to rapidly changing power demands. To do that, you need to run at high neutron flux levels. If you rapidly reduce the power output of a commercial power-generating light water reactor, you get xenon build-up that absorbs neutrons, poisoning the reaction. You have to wait for the xenon to decay before you can ramp up power again, which can take days. This is obviously unacceptable when you're using the reactor for propulsion. You still get xenon build-up when you throttle back a naval reactor, but it burns through it with its high neutron flux, so you can increase power again quickly when necessary. But this necessitates using high enrichment fuel.
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_merlin's comment needs moderation up for the clarity and specific parameters noted in the post.
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IIRC the reactors can run on less enriched uranium. They typically run on high enriched though, because they're a multi-year bitch to refuel.
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It might happen under Trump. He seems to be enamored with AI, and daft enough to let this happen.
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I reply to myself with this because slashdot is a handy place to store links.
The proposal clearly violates the NRC Dale Klein's "no bozos" rule.
https://neutronbytes.com/2024/... [neutronbytes.com]
A deja vue link:
https://neutronbytes.com/2025/... [neutronbytes.com]
"It seems that Sawtooth has gone straight to public hearings for a right-of-way, stirring up controversy in the local community with plans for a multibillion-dollar, regulatorily complex and environmentally sensitive project without prior experience in the industry, without publicly kn
Containment and Backup Cooling (Score:2)
I would be surprised if the reactor itself represents more than 10% of the cost of construction; there is a whole lot more to making this work (especially with highly enriched uranium).
That's a no from me dawg (Score:3)
The developer plans to file for a loan guarantee from the Energy Department, according to the letter. The project would require about US$1.8 billion to US$2.1 billion of private capital to build related infrastructure to prepare the reactors for general use, according to the proposal submitted to the DOE and seen by Bloomberg News. The first phase could be completed as soon as 2029, according to the proposal.
Look, I like a good government subsidy and nuclear power and have long advocated for that fusion in greater amounts but this is one where I can say no, this is not a good use of a loan of that amount, I doubt we'd get the money back on this and I would say we won't learn anything from doing this.
Even if this works and is on budget and on schedule (whatever that is)once it's done we have two sorta bespoke units that's we'll probably never replicate again. This reeks of sounds simple but will take 11 years. This was the pitch on SLS as well, oh just repurpose, we know so much already! Much like the RS-25 engine from shuttle a naval reactor is a top end high performance machine which is always gonna be harder to work with, many reasons it has not been done already.
I mean it's a neat idea but there's so many other nuclear things I'd rather jumpstart with $2B
Cooling? (Score:3)
I don't know much about nuclear reactors so I could be completely off base with this question: doesn't a nuclear reactor on a ship generally have access to unlimited water for cooling?
I'm guessing that such reactors were designed to rely on that abundant cooling. If I'm right, then designing a cooling loop suitable for use on land might mean going into - pun intended - uncharted waters.
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They also have strict maintenance schedules and procedures. How does that work with tech bro owners?
Re:Cooling? (Score:5, Funny)
we will hire an pack of homer simpsons
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They also have strict maintenance schedules and procedures. How does that work with tech bro owners?
And they have people who are highly trained, drilled on failure scenarios, and not fueled by profit motive (as you note)
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Unlimited water, close and careful monitoring, careful maintenance, all because the vessel it is powering is frigging massively expensive. At the same time, "emergency containment" is the bottom of the ocean because military risk management is used and that is very different from civilian risk management.
Using these in a civilian context is beyond stupid and can only be explained by excessive and malicious greed.
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That's not an issue, a cooling tower or pond would work as well. The S1W prototype reactor was out in the Idaho sagebrush lands and had a cooling pond.
I was a trainee there and then went back as an instructor. The A1W and S5G prototype reactors were on the same site.
Nu-cle-ar Wessels (Score:3)
If Trump is so interested.... (Score:2)
in acquiring more energy for his tech bruhs, he'd overcome his enthrallment by the fossil fuel industry. Frak that shit gibbon.
I have no grid, and I must scream: (Score:2)
A Texas power scheme to steal old warship cores,
To feed the AI blaze that never eyes the doors.
HGP, a hollow name, files papers, fumes,
To yank two retired reactors from their doom.
Reusing naval scrap reactors... (Score:2)
Great idea. Nothing about this is solid engineering.
Make slop... (Score:1)
... not war.
It's awful (Score:1)
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It's unbelievably stupid, short-sighted and totally expected.
Welcome to the age of the Great Filter.
developer expects to seek a loan guarantee (Score:3)
Maybe we should ban Plagiaristic AI instead. (Score:2)
What the fuck is a "power developer" (Score:2)
wow - less than 1400 Watts per home. (Score:2)
If US home power consumption keeps dropping....
It used to be that a house was either 12 or 15 kWatts. Then it dropped to 5 then 4 kW. Now, 500,000,000 Watts can power 360,00 homes - less than 1400 watts per house.
Private enterprise in charge of nuclear waste (Score:2)
a dream come true
Without the seawater, how will they cool them? (Score:2)
Without the seawater, how will they cool them?