Powering deterrence: John Phelan’s vision for an unstoppable Navy – Washington Examiner
The article highlights Secretary of the Navy John C. phelan’s aspiring plan to propel the U.S.Navy into a new era of energy dominance thru enhanced energy resilience. The Navy is seeking innovative energy solutions, including small modular nuclear reactors and advanced storage technologies, that ensure uninterrupted power supply with 99.9% reliability even if the public grid fails. This initiative aims to modernize energy infrastructure across Navy and Marine Corps installations, support high-demand data centers needed for advanced AI systems, and create systems resistant to natural disasters, cyberattacks, and grid instability. The effort is designed to speed up the adoption of cutting-edge energy technologies by working directly with industry leaders, increasing operational readiness and national security. Phelan emphasizes that energy resilience is critical to warfighting capability, ensuring Navy operations continue regardless of external power disruptions.
Powering deterrence: John Phelan’s vision for an unstoppable Navy
Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan announced plans to take the Navy to new heights on Thursday, paving the way for an unprecedented era of energy dominance within the military branch. It’s a bold plan predicated on energy resilience to ensure the Navy’s future success that will revolutionize the nuclear energy industry.
The Navy announced in a release that it is calling for proposals of energy solutions that will fuel the Navy and Marine Corps of the future, “with unmatched resilience, security, and reliability.” The objective will be to gather “execution-ready prototypes” to rejuvenate current energy infrastructure with contemporary energy solutions that propel the Navy with vital options to “safeguard mission-critical operations and ensure uninterrupted power in any operating environment.”
It will revolutionize energy fusion opportunities in the Navy, focusing on sustainable and reliable energy sources, such as nuclear reactors and other forms of energy. The most vital component will be implementing viable solutions to the nation’s energy strategies in military operations.
“President Trump’s commitment to unleashing American energy innovation is powering the Navy into a new era,” said Phelan. “We are calling on America’s most capable innovators to deliver advanced, installation-scale energy solutions, ranging from small modular nuclear reactors to cutting-edge storage and generation technologies that can deliver power with 99.9% availability, even if the public grid goes dark. This is about warfighting readiness, mission assurance, and making sure our bases remain operational under any circumstances.”
The Navy emphasized that each prototype must meet several essential prerequisites for this initiative’s success. It includes six components, which the Navy highlighted in its release:
- Modernizing Energy Infrastructure: Deploy advanced, resilient energy systems at Navy, Marine Corps, and other DoD installations.
- 99.9% Mission Availability: Deliver power systems capable of sustaining operations without interruption during public grid failures.
- Powering High-Demand Data Centers: Ensure generation systems, particularly SMRs, are capable of supporting data centers that power advanced AI systems, which require substantially higher and continuous energy output than traditional facilities.
- Advanced On-Site Generation: Integrate next-generation small modular nuclear reactors, geothermal, battery storage, and other dispatchable energy technologies.
- Resilience Against All Threats: Build systems hardened against natural disasters, cyberattacks, and grid instability.
- Innovative Financing: Employ alternative capital structures to accelerate deployment and reduce reliance on traditional appropriated funding.
It is a groundbreaking initiative to strategically facilitate the way the Navy pursues energy dominion under the Trump administration. Most importantly, unlike other presidential administrations, this initiative will grant the Navy “ speed and flexibility needed to work directly with industry leaders, moving from concept to deployment faster than traditional acquisition methods allow.” Doing so will increase efficiency and productivity to previously unimaginable levels. Furthermore, it will usher in a new era of energy resilience for the Navy and Marine Corps.
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Phelan stressed the importance of this “energy resilience” and how it is vital to future preparations for military operations. This new solicitation is an innovative approach to ensure the Navy’s success while enhancing national security endeavors. This new era of “energy resilience” will maximize the Navy’s precision in all its missions.
“Energy resilience is warfighting resilience,” said Phelan. “If a hurricane knocks out the local grid, our ships still sail. If a cyberattack takes down civilian power, our bases stay online. That’s the standard, and we’re setting it now.”
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