Acting Secretary Hung Cao and the planned summer test
The Navy has publicly framed the experiment as a demonstration of “the capability to meet emergent, mission critical needs.” A Navy spokesperson told TWZ that the Department of the Navy is pursuing “a multi-pronged strategy to ensure the delivery of firm, baseload power to our installations for energy resilience and mission assurance,” and said an initial test to deliver power from a Ford class carrier to a compatible shore installation is planned for later this year at Naval Station Norfolk.
USS Gerald R. Ford, A1B reactors, and capacity estimates
The test will involve the USS Gerald R. Ford, the only commissioned ship of the Ford class and the carrier homeported in Norfolk. Each Ford class ship carries two A1B nuclear reactors. The exact power output of those reactors is classified, but the reactors are said to offer a 25 percent increase in “reactor energy” over the A4W plants on the Nimitz class. Based on open assessments cited by the source, an A1B is generally rated at some 700 MWt and two would have a combined rating of roughly 1,400 MWt—still a fraction of the output of typical commercial power-generating reactors, but a substantial quantity relative to many military installations.
Ford class carriers are themselves large, energy-hungry platforms. Typical carrier complements range from roughly 4,000 to 5,000 personnel, and the Gerald R. Ford recently returned from a 326-day deployment—the longest American carrier deployment since the Vietnam War, according to the reporting.
Historical precedents: Lexington, MH-1A, and wartime conversions
Using ships to provide electricity ashore is not new. The USS Lexington supplied power to Tacoma, Washington, between December 1929 and January 1930 when hydroelectric output dropped, and later carried medical personnel and aid to Nicaragua after a 1931 earthquake. During World War II, at least seven Buckley class destroyer escorts were used as floating power plants, and the USS Donnell was converted to that role after combat damage.
The most directly comparable example is the MH-1A, a floating nuclear plant converted from the Liberty ship SS Charles H. Cugle (later renamed Sturgis). Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, MH-1A produced 10 MW and provided electricity in the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 to 1975. It was defueled in 1977 and decommissioned only in 2018; the Sturgis was subsequently scrapped. Today, Russia’s Akademik Lomonosov is the only purpose-built floating nuclear power plant in operation, while commercial and industrial floating plants—such as Karpowership’s non-nuclear vessels—also exist, and South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries is working on a new floating nuclear design.
Operational constraints: force protection, fleet availability, and energy resilience
The Navy’s concept faces a set of trade-offs the service itself acknowledges. Ships in port are inherently more vulnerable than those at sea, and carriers are high-value targets; using a carrier to power a base that may be under or recently exposed to attack could demand added force protection. Conversely, carriers are hardened platforms and relatively well-protected against lower-end threats.
Availability is another constraint. The Navy currently fields 11 carriers and is described in the source as “struggling to meet operational demands” with that force. Delays in new Ford class construction and the retirement schedule for Nimitz class ships create a risk of a shrinking carrier force; the service extended the USS Nimitz’s service life to align its inactivation with the expected delivery date of the future USS John F. Kennedy. Pulling a carrier out of the operational rotation to sit in port generating shore power would therefore be a significant operational decision, although carriers between deployments might be used with relatively minimal disruption.
The broader context includes concern about aging civilian power grids and other threat vectors—such as cyberattacks and proliferating long-range one-way attack drones—that have prompted military interest in multiple paths to resilience, including small modular reactors (SMRs) and other base-focused investments.
What this means for the U.S. Navy, Naval Station Norfolk, and disaster relief planners
- The U.S. Navy: The summer test will help determine whether powering shore installations becomes a formal mission for Ford class carriers. The conversation sits alongside larger energy-resilience efforts—including work on SMRs—where Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Caudle has stressed the need for “an overall programmatic champion” and said the Navy will “be part of that discussion” drawing on Naval Reactors expertise.
- Naval Station Norfolk: The base will be the site of the initial demonstraton. If successful, the capability could offer a firm, baseload backup option to sustain mission-critical installations when conventional grids are unavailable.
- Disaster relief planners and humanitarian responders: Acting Secretary Cao highlighted an additional non-combat use—exporting potable water. Cao noted carriers can produce fresh water via distillation and said the Navy pumps “millions of gallons over the side every day of fresh potable water that tests at pH 7” and could export that water in drought-affected areas like California.
The test slated for later this year at Naval Station Norfolk will be a concrete, operational demonstration of a long-standing but sparsely used idea: ships as mobile powerplants. The outcome will hinge on technical integration, force-protection assessments, and whether fleet scheduling can accommodate a carrier serving ashore at times of acute need. For now, the Gerald R. Ford’s engines are being asked to show whether a carrier’s traditional role in power projection can be broadened to include power provision when the grid goes dark.
