Empowering Defense with Nuclear Energy: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Jeff Waksman on Project Pele and the Future of Defense Energy

In 2016, the Defense Science Board (DSB) highlighted energy as a crucial enabler for future military operations. The study projected that battlefield energy demands would increase substantially in the coming decades, with the energy requirements of current and emerging military capabilities and operations likely to exceed advancements in energy efficiency and management. As a result of DSB’s study, the DoD’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) launched Project Pele, a program intended to design, build, and demonstrate a prototype mobile nuclear reactor.

Dr. Jeff Waksman is a Program Manager at SCO where he leads Project Pele as well as Project TRISCO, which focuses on encapsulated nuclear fuel. Before arriving at SCO, he worked for NASA as a Senior Policy Adviser, and at IBM where he was a staff scientist working on advanced semiconductor technology such as reactive ion etching, III-V materials, quantum computing, and heterogeneous integration.

This February Dr. Waksman will join Dr. Annie Kammerer, Chief of the Nuclear Power Branch Office of the Chief of Engineers (OCE) in the Department of the Army Headquarters (HQDA) at IDGA’s Operational Energy Summit to provide an overview of ongoing nuclear energy projects within the DoD.

The Operational Energy Summit is this February 25-25 in Bethesda, Maryland. Over the course of the two-day event attendees will discuss the emerging threat landscape, contested environments, the role of innovative technology, and the challenges and gaps in defense energy to ensure support of military operations.

Before the event, IDGA sat down with Dr. Wakman to discuss the following:

• The latest updates on Project Pele
• Misconceptions surrounding nuclear energy
• What attendees can expect to gain from the Operational Energy Summit