'Time of opportunity': Kairos Power wins permit to build test reactor featured in exhibit

In this month of gift giving, Kairos Power has received two big presents that it worked hard with Oak Ridgers and others to get.

On Dec. 12, it received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), enabling the company to start building the Hermes demonstration reactor next year at Oak Ridge’s Heritage Center Industrial Park. The 35-megawatt thermal reactor, which will produce only heat, will incorporate two technologies pioneered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

And the week before, a large gathering heard speeches and witnessed a ribbon cutting celebrating the unveiling of the newest exhibit at the American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) - “Reaction Time: The Fluoride Salt Future.” It visually explains how Hermes will work and details the ORNL history behind the creation of the planned reactor’s coated particle fuel and fluoride salt coolant for ORNL’s high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR) and molten salt reactor programs.

Kairos Power, based in Alameda, California, plans to begin building the demonstration reactor in 2024 and operating it in 2026. The project will bring $100 million of investment and 55 new jobs to Oak Ridge, according to Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, who pointed out at AMSE that “Kairos is Greek for the phrase ‘time of opportunity’ and that really is what Kairos is doing because it will be at the forefront of building one type of small modular reactor.”

Hermes 1 is the first non-water-cooled reactor to be approved for construction in the United States in over 50 years, according to a Kairos Power news release.

Hermes 1, which will produce no power, will be cooled by a molten salt called FLIBE, which stands for its constituents – fluorine, lithium and beryllium. The salt will absorb the heat from the nuclear fission produced by TRISO pebbles.

The Hermes reactor will have spherical fuel pebbles the size of table tennis balls based on the TRISO (tristructural isotropic) fuel ORNL researchers developed for the HTGR program. In each pebble, coated uranium nitride fuel particles (19.5% enriched with uranium-235) are nested inside an advanced manufactured silicon carbide structure covered on the outside with graphite. The fuel pebbles are designed to prevent the release of radioactive fission products.

The Hermes 1 reactor is also called the Kairos Power fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor, or KP-FHR. The project is being supported by private investors and a seven-year investment of $303 million pledged in 2020 by the Department of Energy.

The FHR concept was born during lunch conversations in 2002 by Charles Forsberg (then at ORNL and now at MIT), Per Peterson (University of California at Berkeley and now chief nuclear officer at Kairos Power) and Paul Pickard of Sandia National Laboratories (now retired). They were attending an international nuclear energy meeting as members of a subcommittee set up to propose and study alternative nuclear reactor concepts.

They published a paper in 2003 in the “Nuclear Technology” journal suggesting that the FHR, which could achieve high temperatures at low pressure, could produce hydrogen and electricity more efficiently and safely than other reactor concepts. Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder of Kairos Power, was a student of Peterson’s during his doctoral research in nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley, according to Forsberg in a talk to Friends of ORNL in 2021.

"The NRC is currently reviewing Kairos Power’s construction permit application for Hermes 2, a proposed two-unit demonstration plant that would build on the learnings from Hermes, demonstrating the complete architecture of Kairos Power’s future commercial plants at a reduced scale and supplying electricity to the grid," according to the Kairos Power release.

The new AMSE exhibit

The “Reaction Time: The Fluoride Salt Future” exhibit unveiled and celebrated at AMSE in Oak Ridge on Dec. 5 shows how Hermes 2 will work by producing fission from TRISO pebbles that heat up the FLIBE coolant, which transfers the heat to produce steam to spin a turbine that generates electricity.

Before the ribbon-cutting event, several leaders from Oak Ridge, Knoxville, Atlanta, Ohio and California, including top executives with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Google, spoke at AMSE about the planned new reactor and the newest AMSE exhibit.

Alan Lowe, AMSE executive director, praised Kairos Power for their “incredible plans for a reactor that will be a linchpin of America’s nuclear renaissance,” a phrase used by several other speakers. Lowe credited Quinn Argall, AMSE’s exhibits and collections manager, for working with Kairos Power to create the exhibit.

In a video recording, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, Tennessee’s Third Congressional District representative and chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, said the planned Hermes reactor is an “exciting technology that represents a bright future that builds upon Oak Ridge’s world-leading nuclear legacy and that would power the new nuclear renaissance.

“Talented engineers, scientists and workers in Tennessee, New Mexico, Ohio, California and across this great nation are building a new nuclear future that will provide abundant clean energy, energize American prosperity and strengthen our nation’s energy security. Congressional support for nuclear technology is stronger than ever," he said.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio’s Ninth Congressional District, ranking member of the subcommittee Fleischmann chairs, said Materion Corp. in Elmore is “making molten salt coolant for Kairos Power’s testing program.” The TRISO nuclear fuel pebbles are sourced from Los Alamos National Laboratory and tests of Hermes components and coolant are being conducted at a facility in Albuquerque, both in New Mexico.

Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of TVA, the nation’s largest public utility and a Kairos Power partner, said that TVA provides guidance to the Hermes project as a leading advocate for nuclear energy. He noted that TVA not only strives to serve as a reliable and resilient source of clean, affordable electricity that reduces carbon emissions, but also promotes economic development in the region.

“Over the next 30 years we’re going to see at least a doubling of electrical consumption as it’s used to drive the economy,” he said.

Replacing coal power plants with gas turbines, renewable energy and other technologies to power TVA region homes and businesses, he added, “won't be enough without preserving our existing nuclear fleet and building new technologies based on 60 years’ worth of nuclear power experience.”

Last year, TVA announced it would build with its partners a water-cooled small modular reactor at the Oak Ridge site of the former Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project.

Oak Ridge Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dodson, a member of the Oak Ridge City Council, said that “the partnership between AMSE and Kairos Power in developing the exhibit underscores the importance of educating the public about nuclear energy, both its history and the important work in demonstrating advanced reactor technologies.

“In October, the NRC held its mandatory hearing on Kairos Power’s construction permit application for the Hermes demonstration reactor to be built in Oak Ridge. Because Kairos Power recognizes the importance of community engagement, the city of Oak Ridge was pleased to offer a letter of support in this permit application. We look forward to seeing construction get underway very soon," Dodson said.

Laufer said that the construction permit was likely to be issued by the NRC not only because of “the technical excellence of the Kairos team and the work on the application and interview process, but also the clear support from the local community.” He added that “deploying the technology is challenging because there are bumps and twists along the way. I'm confident that we have an approach which gives us what we think is the best shot at getting there.”

Caroline Golin, global head of energy market development and innovation for Google, said that Google is committed “to run all of our infrastructure on completely decarbonized energy” and realizes that because “renewable energy will be insufficient to achieve grid decarbonization,” advanced nuclear technology will be needed.

She added that Google is now investing in and partnering with the communities in which it operates.

“We are incredibly committed to the nuclear technologies we are celebrating tonight, and we see you all as partners and co-conspirators in this next journey,” she said.

Another member of the Oak Ridge City Council, Derrick Hammond, who is the pastor of Oak Valley Baptist Church, said, “I want to thank Kairos Power for the three C’s of their community engagement – their compassion, communication and commitment.” He compared the Kairos Power project to a sankofa bird, “which looks back even as it continues walking forward.” He suggested that this symbol in African culture represents an appreciation of the ORNL technology legacy that enables Kairos Power to move forward with an advanced reactor as a future source of carbon-free nuclear power in the current climate crisis.

Cutlines

Artist’s concept of the Hermes demonstration reactor to be built by Kairos Power at the Heritage center Industrial Park in western Oak Ridge.

A view of the new “Reaction Time: The Fluoride Salt Future” exhibit at the American Museum of Science and Energy that visually explains how the Hermes reactor will work in Oak Ridge.

The Dec. 5 ribbon-cutting ceremony at American Museum of Science and Energy held before the unveiling of its newest exhibit on the planned Hermes reactor in Oak Ridge, called“Reaction Time: The Fluoride Salt Future.”

Alan Lowe

Caroline Golin of Google

Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder of Kairos Power

Jeff Lyash, CEO of TVA

People at the exhibit opening celebration

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Kairos Power wins permit to build test reactor featured in exhibit