US, China and Russia race to build nuclear power plants on the moon

The United States, China and Russia are competing to build nuclear power plants on the moon. Nuclear energy — once politically unpopular at home — has been reassessed as essential to solving the power shortages of the AI era, and that competition is now extending beyond Earth to the lunar surface.

The New York Times reported Sunday (local time) that NASA recently asked contractors to prepare a 20-kilowatt nuclear reactor to be built near the moon's south pole by December 2030. The agency set performance requirements: the reactor must be capable of being transported into space and must operate for at least five years without maintenance.

Earlier, China and Russia announced plans to build a 10-kilowatt lunar reactor called "Selena" by 2036 and operate it for a decade.

The great-power race to build lunar nuclear plants is seen as intertwined with the broader contest to claim territory on the moon. The New York Times assessed that the United States acted out of concern that, once China and Russia establish a reactor on the lunar surface, part of the moon would in effect become a no-go zone. Nuclear power plants, the logic goes, would serve as the cornerstone of permanent bases built on the moon.

The limitations of solar power alone are clear on the moon, where day and night bring vastly different levels of sunlight — particularly given that lunar nights last two weeks.

Experts said, however, that actual construction of lunar nuclear plants would take more time, citing challenges such as securing lunar landers and a lack of know-how for installing and operating reactors in an environment unlike Earth's. R. Scott Kemp, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, "If protective measures are inadequate, even a minor accident could produce far more radioactive fallout," and added that "there is no wind on the moon, but gravity is weak, so debris could travel great distances."