This startup is getting closer to bringing next-generation nuclear to the grid

MIT Expertise Assessment released our list of 15 Climate Tech Companies 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 facet of the method. So let’s dig into the bulletins and what they imply for the place nuclear know-how goes.

First, a fast refresher on Kairos Energy: Whereas nuclear crops right now overwhelmingly use pressurized water to maintain reactors cool, Kairos is utilizing molten salt. The concept is that these reactors (that are additionally smaller than these usually constructed right now) will assist generate electrical energy in a method that’s safer and extra environment friendly than typical nuclear energy.

With regards to technique, Kairos is taking small steps towards the final word purpose of full-size energy crops. Development started earlier this yr 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 display the know-how.

Final week, the corporate introduced it obtained a construction permit 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 growing a plan to work on development for each Hermes and Hermes 2 on the identical time, he added. After I requested if Hermes remains to be on monitor to start out up in 2027 (as we reported in our profile of the corporate in October), Laufer mentioned that’s an “aggressive timeline.”

Whereas development on take a look at reactors is rolling, Kairos is forging forward with industrial offers—in October, it introduced an agreement with Google to construct as much as 500 megawatts’ price of energy crops by 2035. Underneath this settlement, Kairos will develop, assemble, and function crops and promote electrical energy to the tech large.