⚛️Navy Reactors Go Civilian

(Doug, you’ll love this one!)

AI is doing something funny to the power market.

It’s making people say sentences that would have sounded unreal 5 years ago, like: “What if we take old Navy reactors and plug them into a data center”.

That’s what a Texas developer called HGP Intelligent Energy is proposing. They want to repurpose 2 retired U.S. Navy reactors, move them into a civilian setting, and use them to power a data center project near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The proposal targets roughly 450 to 520 MW of (always on) electricity.

The pitch is speed. The grid is already strained. New gas plants take years. New nuclear takes longer. But reusing a reactor that already exists could be completed as soon as 2029, according to HGP.

HGP says the reactors they are talking about come from the same class used in aircraft carriers and submarines, either Westinghouse A4W units or GE S8G class units. Their claim is that rewiring 2 of them would cost around $1 million to $4 million per MW, a fraction of what a new build costs.

They are also talking in very 2025 language. The plan includes applying for a DOE loan guarantee, and they estimate they would still need about $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion in private capital to build all the infrastructure around the reactors and prep them for general use.

They also propose a revenue share with the government and a decommissioning fund (they’re not just dumping the cleanup bill on taxpayers).

The Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has some SERIOUS experience with nuclear. Over the last 75 years, they have operated 273 reactors plants, taken 562 reactor cores critical with over 7,500 reactor years of safe operations. If anyone on Earth knows how to run a reactor without drama, it’s the people who run them in submarines.

Now, this is uncharted territory. Naval reactors are built for propulsion and military requirements, not for plugging into a civilian grid with civilian regulators.

There are also real security and oversight questions, including the fact that some naval reactor designs are tied to highly enriched fuel (HALEU) and military style operating assumptions.

Still, the fact this is being proposed tells you something important. The energy scramble is getting so intense that people are reaching for anything that looks like a shortcut to firm electricity.

⛏️DOE Moves to Rebuild the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

The U.S. wants to quadruple nuclear power over the next 25 years.

Small problem: the reactor fleet burns roughly 50 million lbs of U₃O₈ per year, and the U.S. still imports about 98% of the uranium used to make its reactor fuel. Domestic mines are producing around 1 million lbs a year right now.

That is a national security liability with a uranium sticker on it.

So DOE is pulling out the “we’re done messing around” tool. Under the Defense Production Act, it is setting up a nuclear fuel cycle consortium, bringing together miners, processors, utilities, and the government.

The job is to write plans of action to rebuild domestic capacity across the whole fuel chain, not just mining, but milling, conversion, enrichment, fabrication, and the rest.

The structure unlocks some interesting things, including:

First, legal teamwork. Under this structure, companies can coordinate in ways that would normally trip antitrust wires, which makes it easier to lock in roles, contracts, and sequencing before the first pound even leaves the ground.

Second, price protection. The consortium is building a mechanism that supports long term contracting, price floors, offtake agreements, and a strategic reserve. A safety net so domestic projects do not die just because global prices wobble.

Third, less red tape. The whole point of using the DPA is to treat this like an emergency capacity build, which means faster prioritization through the usual paperwork maze.

An example is a mill restart plus nearby mines, backed by utility contracts, DOE support, and fast tracked approvals. That kind of play could turn dormant U.S. uranium assets into real pounds, real jobs, and real fuel security.

This is the government trying to break the deadlock where utilities wait for supply, miners wait for contracts, and America keeps importing.

🇸🇪 Sweden’s SMR Plan Gets Real

Sweden is doing the most European thing imaginable, it wants more nuclear, but it also wants the government to help carry the risk.

State-owned utility Vattenfall just applied for state financing to build new reactors at the existing Ringhals site, currently hosting 2 PWRs totaling 2.2 GW.

It’s the first company to formally step up under the government’s new support scheme, which is meant to kickstart a nuclear comeback.

The government says it can share cost and risk for about 5 GW of new nuclear capacity via a mix of cheap loans, up to ~$48 billion, plus price guarantees.

Sweden will help finance the build, and will help make revenues more predictable, so the project can actually get over the “bank says no” hurdle.

Vattenfall has already short-listed the likely reactor suppliers. If it goes with Rolls Royce SMR, the plan would be 3 units. If it goes with GE Vernova’s BWRX 300, it would be 5 units. Either way the total comes out around 1,500 MW.

They plan to pick a supplier next year, but they are not talking final investment decision until 2029.

One more catch (because Europe always has one): state financing needs a green light from the European Commission.

The bigger target: Sweden’s government wants the equivalent of about 10 new full size reactors by 2045 to complement the 6 reactors still running today.

Last week in Premium we published a 21 page deep dive into Cameco Corporation, the backbone of the western fuel cycle.

We broke down how Cameco makes money across the fuel cycle, what the Westinghouse angle really adds, how contracting, supply discipline, and enrichment bottlenecks feed into their pricing power.

If you want the full read, plus our live portfolio, allocation updates, and the weekly uranium and macro sentiment signals, join Premium and get access instantly.

 🎅The Worlds Most Dangerous Toy

The 1950s had a different relationship with safety standards.

Exhibit A: the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab Kit, a kids’ toy that included radioactive material and instructions on how to go find more uranium outside.

🎅Merry Christmas, Timmy, go build the fuel cycle.

☢️ Non Stick Pans, Nuclear Edition

Welcome back to Atomic Alternatives, where we explore the strange, clever, and occasionally mind bending ways nuclear science shows up in your life when you are not even looking for it.

This week’s cameo is sitting in your kitchen.

Non-stick cookware.

Most people think of radiation as something that lives in reactors or hospitals. Meanwhile, it’s out here doing boring, useful manufacturing work, like making sure your pan coating does not flake off the first time you make eggs.

Here’s the trick: some non stick coatings, typically PTFE, can be treated with radiation to create stronger “cross links” in the material. This is called radiation induced crosslinking.

Think of cross linking like adding extra tiny bridges between polymer chains.

The radiation gives the polymer chains a small controlled jolt, it knocks a few bonds loose and creates reactive “sticky spots” along the chains. When two of those spots end up near each other, they can recombine and form a brand new bond between chains. That new bond is the bridge.

More bridges means the coating behaves less like a soft layer sitting on top of metal, and more like a tougher network that holds together.

The practical outcome is exactly what you would hope. Better adhesion to the surface, better abrasion resistance, and a coating that is less likely to get chewed up by normal use over time.

The radiation is used as a processing tool, like heat or pressure. It does its job during manufacturing, then it is gone.

Not flashy, not headline material, but it’s nuclear science quietly upgrading your everyday life.

😂Meme of The Week

Happy New Year!🎆

Thanks for sticking with me for the past year!

See you in 2026!

-Fredrik

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