A US company developing a portable, mass-produced nuclear microreactor has signed an agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit and the Department of the Air Force designed to deliver a plant to a US military base.

El Segundo, California-based Radiant said the agreement is the first of its kind and was signed weeks after the Department of Energy (DOE) selected its Kaleidos reactor for testing next year at Idaho National Laboratory's Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (Dome) facility. This will be the first new design of a US reactor to be tested at Dome in almost 50 years.

Radiant chief executive officer and founder Doug Bernauer said: “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 refuelling.”