Indiana to get its first power-producing nuclear reactor

The US Department of War announced deployment of a micromodular reactor at Naval Weapons Station Crane in Indiana, to be operational by September 2028. It will be the first power-producing reactor in Indiana and the US Navy's first shore-based advanced micromodular reactor. The installation is part of the Army's Janus Program, launched to deliver resilient, secure energy to military installations independent of the commercial grid. The Department of War selected five microreactor developers for five installations; Crane is the first named project.

Where this fits

This is a national-security play, not a grid-decarbonisation play. The Crane reactor prioritises operational resilience and strategic autonomy, power that cannot be cut off by weather, grid failure, or hostile action. It sits at the centre of Energy Realism's core argument: firm, dispatchable nuclear power is being banned in Australia while the US military treats it as essential infrastructure. The contrast is stark. A military installation capable of sustaining critical operations under demanding conditions needs on-site, weather-independent generation. That is exactly what a renewables-plus-battery grid cannot deliver without firm capacity. Yet Australia's renewable buildout assumes grid-scale storage and gas firming will substitute for firm power sources, at immense cost and materials demand imported from China.

What it means

The US Department of War is moving faster than civilian utilities to deploy the technology Australia has legally prohibited. If Australia faces a supply-chain shock, climate extremity, or coercion during a conflict, the grid resilience gap between US military installations and the Australian national grid will matter. A solar-and-battery grid dependent on Chinese supply chains and weather cannot sustain critical operations. The honest point: the Crane project is proof that firm nuclear power is technically ready and strategically necessary. Australia has chosen the opposite path.