alternatehistory.com

The United States Army Nuclear Power Program ran from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. It focused on smaller nuclear reactors than the United States Navy program, intended primarily for providing heat and/or power to remote Army installations and creating synthetic fuel for vehicles. It was never as prominent as its Navy counterpart, but it seems it could have also done some things for commercial development. While the Navy focused primarily on using large reactors to generate electricity, the Army could have focused on small modular reactors and their use for providing heat, fuel, and desalinization.

Could an Army analogue to Rickover have made the program more prominent, perhaps due to its association with the Army Corps of Engineers and its power generation tasks? Could the Army program have helped with the development of small modular reactors, perhaps even having some units provide heat, fuel, and/or water to remote communities during tests?
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