Army Nuclear Power Program - Nuclear-powered Fuel Depot

Nuclear-powered Fuel Depot

This material is extracted from an article in Army Logistician It is also discussed in the Briefing Book, Section III-C.

In November 1963, an Army study submitted to the Department of Defense (DOD) proposed employing a military compact reactor (MCR) as the power source for a nuclear-powered energy depot, which was being considered as a means of producing synthetic fuels in a combat zone for use in military vehicles. MCR studies, which had begun in 1955, grew out of the Transportation Corps' interest in using nuclear energy to power heavy, overland cargo haulers in remote areas. These studies investigated various reactor and vehicle concepts, including a small liquid-metal-cooled reactor, but ultimately the concept proved impractical.

The energy depot, however, was an attempt to solve the logistics problem of supplying fuel to military vehicles on the battlefield. While nuclear power could not supply energy directly to individual vehicles, the MCR could provide power to manufacture, under field conditions, a synthetic fuel as a substitute for conventional carbon-based fuels. The nuclear power plant would be combined with a fuel production system to turn readily available elements such as hydrogen or nitrogen into fuel, which then could be used as a substitute for gasoline or diesel fuel in cars, trucks, and other vehicles.

Of the fuels that could be produced from air and water, hydrogen and ammonia offer the best possibilities as substitutes for petroleum. By electrolysis or high- temperature heat, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen then used in engines or fuel cells. Alternatively, nitrogen can be produced through the liquefaction and fractional distillation of air and then combined with hydrogen to form ammonia as a fuel for internal-combustion engines. Consideration also was given to using nuclear reactors to generate electricity to charge batteries for electric-powered vehicles—a development contingent on the development of suitable battery technology.

By 1966, the practicality of the energy depot remained in doubt because of questions about the cost-effectiveness of its current and projected technology. The Corps of Engineers concluded that, although feasible, the energy depot would require equipment that probably would not be available during the next decade. As a result, further development of the MCR and the energy depot was suspended until they became economically attractive and technologically possible.

Although the nuclear powered fuel depot was never taken beyond this point, the concept was technically sound but to this day remains too expensive to realize, even though fuel cell technology has advanced significantly since the suspension of the program. However, there remains the possibility that a similar approach might be used in the coming decades, as fuel cells become more proven and oil becomes more expensive.