From a Pacific island to an Arctic research station, the world’s most critical remote operations are tethered to a fragile and outdated energy model. Advanced nuclear energy offers a better way.
A diesel convoy is the umbilical cord of the modern world’s frontier. You can see it in the immense silhouette of a tanker ship navigating the turquoise waters of the South Pacific, delivering the fuel that will keep the lights on in a small island nation. You can see it in the icebreaker carving a path to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, carrying the roughly one million gallons of fuel needed for a year of climate research. And you can see it in the armed trucks snaking through a desert, transporting the lifeblood for a remote military base.
This convoy, in all its forms, is both a lifeline and a leash. It powers our most critical remote operations, but it also chains them to a system that is cripplingly expensive, strategically vulnerable, and environmentally unsustainable.
These vital outposts are all, in effect, “energy islands.” Whether a lithium mine in the high Andes, a forward defense installation, or an entire island state, they all share a defining trait: profound energy isolation. Cut off from stable electrical grids, they are almost universally dependent on shipped-in fossil fuels.
The price of this isolation is staggering. For a remote mine in Alaska, electricity from diesel can cost over $1.00 per kilowatt-hour, more than twelve times the U.S. industrial average. For a small island nation, fuel imports can consume up to 20 percent of its GDP. For a defense department, the cost of a gallon of fuel delivered to the frontline can be a hundred times its market price. This is a systemic brake on progress, slashing profitability, bloating budgets, and stifling development.
The strategic cost is even higher. This long logistical tail is a critical vulnerability. It can be severed by a hurricane, a geopolitical crisis, or a military blockade. The ultimate irony is that we use this carbon-intensive fuel to power the supercomputers that model climate change and protect the very island nations threatened by its effects.
While solar, wind, and advancing battery storage are vital pieces of a cleaner energy puzzle, they struggle to meet the sheer energy density and 24/7 resilient baseload required to run a supercomputer, a heavy-duty mine crusher, or the critical infrastructure of an entire country on a small footprint.
To truly solve this problem, we must embrace the one source of carbon-free energy with the power density to make the diesel convoy obsolete: advanced nuclear power, in all its forms.
This means a two-pronged strategy embracing both today’s innovation and tomorrow’s horizon. First are the next-generation fission reactors (like Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs, and microreactors), which are already entering the market. Alongside them is the coming revolution of compact fusion, which promises to unlock even greater potential.
Both technologies offer clean, safe, and reliable electricity with a minimal land footprint. Modern fission designs are passively safe, engineered to prevent accidents, while fusion power is inherently incapable of meltdown and produces no long-lived waste. Together, they represent a portfolio of solutions to achieve true energy independence.
Imagine a future where:
A small island nation, powered by a micro-reactor, achieves total energy independence, driving its economy and desalinating fresh water at a stable, affordable cost.
A remote mining operation, using a small modular reactor, eliminates its largest operating expense and its carbon footprint.
A forward defense base cuts its vulnerable logistical tail with a reliable nuclear battery, becoming a resilient and self-sufficient strategic asset.
An Arctic research station runs its power-hungry data centers on a clean, reliable source, free from the precarious diesel convoy.
This is not a single utopian dream; it is a tangible future enabled by a range of proven and emerging technologies. But the institutions that need it most cannot adopt it without a new financial and regulatory framework.
A Call for Strategic Foresight and Investment
Financing disaster recovery and backing incremental projects is a strategy for managing a crisis, not ending it. To alter this trajectory, the world’s financial leaders, such as the World Bank, the IMF, and regional development banks, must shift from incremental aid to transformational investment in the entire advanced nuclear ecosystem.
We call on these institutions to establish an “Advanced Energy Independence Fund.” Its mission would be to prepare the ground for this revolution by using catalytic capital, concessional loans, and guarantees. This fund would:
Deploy the Proven: Finance the deployment of commercially ready SMRs and microreactors at these energy islands now.
Accelerate the Future: De-risk and fund the final commercialization steps for compact fusion, ensuring a long-term pipeline of innovation.
Forge a Regulatory Path: Help establish the international safety and operational standards needed to certify and ensure this new class of technologies.
This is not charity; it is strategic market creation. It will accelerate global energy solutions while permanently empowering our most vital remote operations.
We need to decide: continue to allocate billions to the symptoms of energy isolation, or make a generational investment in the cure. For all who operate on the world’s frontiers, the time for incrementalism is over. The moment to build a future powered by advanced fission and fusion is now.