Secretary of Energy Chris Wright will accompany Valar Atomics’ Ward250 advanced reactor from California to Utah Feb. 15, the Department of Energy said in an email Tuesday.
The Ward250 reactor will be transported from March Air Force Base (AFB) in California to Hill AFB in Utah. DOE said the reactor would not be fueled and there would not be nuclear material aboard the flight.
Following the trip, Wright will host a press conference at Hill AFB with Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, and Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor.
In October, Wright and Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll announced a new program to deploy microreactors in the military, named Project Janus or the Janus Program. Valar Atomics is a company that has been developing a microreactor in Los Angeles that it’s looking to turn on “early next year” under a pilot program with Wright and the DOE, Valar’s CEO Taylor told the Exchange Monitor in October. While requests for proposals will still need to come out for the Janus program, Taylor said Valar is “officially in progress with the Department of Energy, and we’re excited to start work with the Army on this as well.”
Taylor told the Monitor this week that while there would be “no official Janus announcements” at the event Sunday, Valar Atomics will be “demonstrating an important deployment capability along with the Department of War.”