Nuclear power plants are coming to the battlefield

WAR ZONES are dangerous places. Where better, then, for a nuclear reactor? On March 9th America's government awarded a trio of firms $39.7m to design "microreactors" that can supply a few megawatts of power to remote military bases, and be moved quickly by road, rail, sea and air. The idea of small reactors is as old as nuclear power itself. In July 1951, five months before a reactor in Idaho became the first in the world to produce usable electricity through fission, America began building USS ...