Kairos Power

Last updated
Kairos Power
Company type Private
Industry Small modular reactors
Founded2016
FounderMike Laufer, Edward Blandford, Per Peterson
Headquarters707 W. Tower Avenue, Suite A,
Alameda, California
,
US
Area served
 United States of America
Products Nuclear reactors
Website kairospower.com

Kairos Power is an American nuclear energy company which develops flouride salt-cooled high temperature reactors, also known as a molten-salt reactors, a type of small modular reactors (SMRs). Founded in 2016, the company is known for its aim to build SMRs for sustainable power generation.

Contents

Products

Kairos Power's main product shall be small modular reactors that use molten fluoride salt as a coolant, as opposed to conventional water-cooled reactors. [1]

History

Kairos Power was founded in 2016 by a team of engineers and scientists. Kairos Power operates in the small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear energy sector. [2] Its current project is developing the Hermes fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature (FHR) SMR.

In 2021, Kairos Power applied for a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for their Hermes demonstration FHR. The application was approved in December 2023. [3] Kairos Power has not sought NRC design approval for its SMRs.

In 2023, the NRC approved site construction in Tennessee for the Hermes demonstration reactor. The site construction approval was the first approval awarded in 50 years for a non-water-cooled US plant, [4] [5]

In 2024, Kairos Power signed an agreement with Google to use small nuclear reactors to generate energy to be used to power its artificial intelligence data centres. [6] Google has ordered six to seven small nuclear reactors, with the first due to be completed by 2030, and the remainder by 2035. [7] The plans are pending approval by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as local agencies. [8]

FHR Technology

Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs) are nothing new amongst nuclear energy researchers and have been studied in the US by since the 1950s. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was one of the early organizations to build and run a test MSR for 5 years, starting in 1964. The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment was canceled in 1969 after going critical, but was considered a success by the nuclear science community. In later years, researchers at the lab exposed the plant's operational issues, which included 171 unplanned shutdowns and an overall operation time of 40 percent due to corrosion and waste buildups. [9]

The Fluoride Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactor (FHR) Kairos is proposing for use with their Hermes SMR is very similar to an MSR, but includes the addition of fluoride to the salt. Fluoride is known to protect metals from the salt's corrosiveness at higher temperatures. However, there are many issues with fluoride's highly corrosive gas during fuel removal and regularly anticipated plant cleanings to remove the same waste buildups MSRs suffer from. As an alternative, nitrogen trifluoride is being proposed. However, ongoing research has not proven this to be a viable alternative, and its efficacy is unclear. [10] [11]

References

  1. ↑ "Google wants nuclear reactors to power its AI data centers – DW – 10/15/2024". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  2. ↑ Lawson, Alex (2024-10-15). "Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in 'world first' deal". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  3. ↑ "Hermes – Kairos Application". nrc.gov. NRC. Retrieved 1 September 2025.
  4. ↑ Wade, Bloomberg, Will. "U.S. just gave a historic blessing to a new nuclear reactor that doesn't use water for cooling". Fortune. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  5. ↑ Rykhlevskii, Andrei (2024), "Kairos power pebble bed reactor" , Molten Salt Reactors and Thorium Energy, Elsevier, pp. 945–952, doi:10.1016/b978-0-323-99355-5.00010-0, ISBN   978-0-323-99355-5 , retrieved 2024-10-16
  6. ↑ Chant, Tim De (2024-10-14). "Google signed a deal to power data centers with nuclear micro-reactors from Kairos — but the 2030 timeline is very optimistic". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  7. ↑ Lawson, Alex (2024-10-15). "Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in 'world first' deal". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  8. ↑ "Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
  9. ↑ Ramana, M.V. (20 June 2022). "Molten salt reactors were trouble in the 1960s—and they remain trouble today". thebulletin.org. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Retrieved 26 August 2025.
  10. ↑ Scheele, Randall. "Flibe Molten Salt Processing". energy.gov. Flibe Energy, Inc. Retrieved 31 August 2025.
  11. ↑ McNamara, Bruce K. "Nitrogen Trifluoride-Based Fluoride- Volatility Separations Process: Initial Studies". osti.gov. USDOE. Retrieved 1 September 2025.
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