[stankypickle]

It is being funded by the pentagon. It isn't for civilian use.

When considering "battlefield conditions" think along the lines of people with heat seeking missiles and infrared goggles who can easily spot a hot nuclear reactor, and who really want to bring down a base.

Not to mention how complicated it is to operate and maintain a nuclear reactor even if conditions are ideal. The additional training and personnel required to support one of these things... would it really be worthwhile in the end?

[pjc50]

"Battlefield conditions" means they need it to run the air conditioning in forward bases in occupied countries. At the moment, this is astonishingly expensive, because it has to be done with fuel trucked in across dangerous supply lines.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/... : every joule of energy spent on aircon in Afghansitan came from fuel trucked a thousand miles across the Khyber pass, getting shot at along the way. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/08/afghanistan-ta...

[andromeduck]

If you're using enough power to warrant even a small nuclear reactor there's really no use trying to hide your thermals except maybe in a marine environment.

[swalsh]

I'd assume it's not about hiding the base, but more about hiding this glowing hot obvious target.

[luckylion]

Yes, this is about military use, I understood the comment from davidu to possibly not be focused on military use but about the idea in general, hence the difference between the positive lookout and yours (and the article's).

[stankypickle]

I'm not saying it isn't a bad idea for certain applications. I'm skeptical of the military application that is currently being pushed. It remains to be seen if one of these would even be plausible in the civilian arena, and the pentagon certainly isn't championing such (not that it should).

All of that just to power AC? Is the risk really worth the reward? Have the consequences of a failure in a military setting been fully considered?