The company is developing the 1 MWe Kaleidos high-temperature gas-cooled portable microreactor, which will use a graphite core and TRISO (tri-structural isotropic) fuel. Earlier this year, it was one of eight technology developers selected as potential microreactors suppliers made eligible to receive funding under the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations programme: an initiative launched in 2024 by the Defense Innovation Unit in collaboration with the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force, with the goal of “working to design, license, build, and operate one or more microreactor nuclear power plants on military installations”.
“We’re proud to be the first agreement designed to deliver mass-manufactured nuclear microreactors for a US military base,” said Radiant CEO and Founder Doug Bernauer. “In 36 months, Kaleidos reactors will arrive via truck and within 48 hours plug in, power on, and provide resilient, cyber-secure power to our nation’s Air Force for years without refueling.”
Radiant says it plans to test its first reactor in 2026, with initial customer deployments beginning in 2028.
In July, Radiant was one of the two companies selected by the US Department of Energy to perform the first tests in the National Reactor Innovation Center’s Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments test bed at the Idaho National Laboratory.
