Kairos begins construction of a small modular reactor at Oak Ridge

Concrete foundations and pilings are rising in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for what is expected to be one of the first small modular reactors, built by Kairos Energy, which has been developing the technology for almost a decade and is now deep in construction. Kairos’s design shrinks the vessel where nuclear reactions heat a coolant, uses molten salt rather than water, and will not have the large domed buildings of conventional plants; the reactor will rise about 32 feet, and a full commercial site would include two reactor buildings and a turbine on roughly 60 acres.

The company, which has about 540 full-time employees, makes many parts at a facility in Albuquerque and says it tests each phase of development as it progresses. Kairos plans a test reactor by 2028, a demonstration unit capable of producing electricity by 2030, and has a contract to supply 500 megawatts of capacity to Google by 2035.

The broader nuclear industry is seeing renewed political and corporate backing: the Energy Department has awarded $800 million for new reactor technologies and $1 billion in loan guarantees to restart the Three Mile Island plant, and companies including NuScale, TerraPower and others are pursuing smaller reactors.

But the United States has lagged in bringing new reactors online in recent years while China has completed more than three dozen; two U.S. reactors finished in the last decade at Vogtle were years late and cost about $35 billion.

Key Topics

Business, Kairos Energy, Oak Ridge, Small Modular Reactor, Triso Fuel, Google