MIT Know-how Evaluation launched our record of 15 Local weather Tech Firms to Watch lower than two months in the past. Since then, awardee Kairos Energy has had three massive bulletins about its progress towards constructing next-generation nuclear reactors.
Every of those bits of stories represents an attention-grabbing side of the method. So let’s dig into the bulletins and what they imply for the place nuclear expertise goes.
First, a fast refresher on Kairos Energy: Whereas nuclear crops at this time overwhelmingly use pressurized water to maintain reactors cool, Kairos is utilizing molten salt. The thought is that these reactors (that are additionally smaller than these sometimes constructed at this time) will assist generate electrical energy in a approach that’s safer and extra environment friendly than typical nuclear energy.
With regards to technique, Kairos is taking small steps towards the final word objective of full-size energy crops. Building started earlier this 12 months on Hermes, the corporate’s first nuclear take a look at reactor. That facility will generate a small quantity of warmth—about 35 megawatts’ price—to reveal the expertise.
Final week, the corporate introduced it acquired a building allow for the subsequent iteration of its system, Hermes 2. This plant will share a location with Hermes, and it’ll embody the infrastructure to rework warmth to electrical energy. That makes it the primary electricity-producing next-generation nuclear plant to get this approval within the US.
Whereas this information wasn’t an enormous shock (the corporate has been working with the Nuclear Regulatory Fee for years), “any day that you just’re getting a allow or a license from the NRC is an uncommon and special occasion,” Kairos CEO Mike Laufer instructed me in an interview.
The corporate is creating a plan to work on building for each Hermes and Hermes 2 on the similar time, he added. After I requested if Hermes continues to be on observe to begin up in 2027 (as we reported in our profile of the corporate in October), Laufer mentioned that’s an “aggressive timeline.”
Whereas building on take a look at reactors is rolling, Kairos is forging forward with business offers—in October, it introduced an settlement with Google to construct as much as 500 megawatts’ price of energy crops by 2035. Beneath this settlement, Kairos will develop, assemble, and function crops and promote electrical energy to the tech big.