Since we last spoke at our webinar in September, Kairos Power has made new progress that we are excited to share with you. As we look ahead to the coming year, these are the stories to watch:
Engineering Test Unit (ETU) Progress
Last week we celebrated the arrival of the Engineering Test Unit vessel at our testing facility in Albuquerque. ETU will be the largest Flibe test ever built and will demonstrate the design & integration of key KP-FHR technologies. Watch for more updates as we bring it to life! pic.twitter.com/zha6RiEMP5
— Kairos Power (@KairosPower) December 2, 2021
The team at KP-Southwest in Albuquerque, NM, is hard at work assembling ETU – our first major, non-nuclear hardware iteration. Built at roughly the same scale as the Hermes demonstration reactor, with similar operating temperatures, pressures, components, and capabilities, ETU will contribute insights and lessons learned to advance the Hermes design.
We’ve come a long way in just over a year since we started construction on the T-Facility annex where ETU is now taking shape.
What’s next? Assembly of ETU and its supporting systems is progressing rapidly, and we will share more updates soon.
But first… Kairos Power has been busy in Tennessee, making progress on Hermes and logging a major licensing milestone.
NRC Accepts Hermes Construction Permit Application for Review
Kairos Power is pleased to announce that @NRCgov has formally accepted our construction permit application for the Hermes demonstration reactor to be built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Read our press release: https://t.co/hM8viPOMO2
— Kairos Power (@KairosPower) November 30, 2021
On Nov. 30, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it has formally accepted Kairos Power’s construction permit application (CPA) for the Hermes demonstration reactor. The CPA will now undergo a detailed technical review by the NRC, which is expected to take just 21 months.
This accelerated schedule was enabled by Kairos Power’s extensive pre-application engagement with the NRC, during which our team submitted 11 topical reports and a number of technical reports and completed the CPA in record time – just 18 months after we made the decision to build a demonstration reactor.
You’ll recall, Hermes is a public-private partnership supported in part by the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Project (ARDP). It is a joint effort by Kairos Power and our partners: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, EPRI, and Materion Corporation.
At the same time, Kairos Power has also entered into a cooperative development agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to provide defined engineering, operations, and licensing services for Hermes.
What’s next? Pending approval of our application, Hermes is scheduled to be operational in 2026.
Meanwhile… Kairos Power engineers are making big strides with help from our friends at Oak Ridge National Lab.
Kairos Power Partners with Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Photos from Kairos Power’s recent working session w/ @ORNL to exchange knowledge & incorporate lessons learned from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment into the Hermes demonstration reactor. We thank our partners for their hospitality & look forward to continued collaboration. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/DWqH1oWnmM
— Kairos Power (@KairosPower) December 20, 2021
Kairos Power is pleased to announce a strategic partnership agreement with @ORNL to benefit from the lab’s expertise in fuel pebble characterization. We look forward to collaborating to improve our understanding of the fuel form to be used in the Hermes demonstration reactor. pic.twitter.com/6HMnxIxvo8
— Kairos Power (@KairosPower) November 4, 2021
Kairos Power is thrilled to be working with ORNL to incorporate findings from past molten salt reactor experiments and knowledge of the annular fuel pebble form into the Hermes reactor design. Our team recently visited the national lab in the first of many learning expeditions to exchange knowledge with the ORNL team. We look forward to further collaboration that will advance our rapid iterative development approach.
And finally… on December 10th we celebrated Kairos Power’s fifth anniversary – a stirring milestone to reflect on our progress toward enabling the world’s transition to clean energy.
Celebrating Five Years of Kairos Power
Employees at Kairos Power locations joined together in a hybrid event where co-founders Mike Laufer, Ed Blandford, and Per Peterson shared the origin of Kairos Power’s mission and presented their vision to deliver a safe, affordable, clean energy technology that will make a difference in the fight against climate change.
“We’ve built the infrastructure, but more importantly, we’ve built the team that now has all the knowledge we need to be successful,” said Laufer.
The program concluded with the presentation of the first annual Kairos Power Culture Ambassador Award, which recognizes a team member who exemplifies the culture we strive to create at our company – mission-centered, responsible, pioneering, people-centered, collaborative, action-oriented, direct, and honest. This year’s award went to Camille Labadie, who leads the ETU valve testing team and has played a key role in developing Kairos Power’s molten salt systems. Labadie’s embodiment of our desired culture characteristics is an inspiration to our entire team.
Until Next Time…
We’ll be back with more updates in 2022. Until then, happy holidays from all of us at Kairos Power! We wish you and your loved ones a healthy, safe, and productive new year.
—The Kairos Power Team
