License to Build: Progress on Hermes and the ETU Series

Dear Friend,

This winter, Kairos Power marked three notable milestones in the space of two months:

• Receiving a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build the Hermes demonstration reactor,
• logging over 1,000 hours of pumped salt operations in our first Engineering Test Unit (ETU 1.0),
• and finalizing our contract with the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $303 million in risk reduction funding through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

While we couldn’t have predicted that these three events would coincide so closely, we recognized the serendipitous moment as a signal that Kairos Power is on the right path. We’ve laid out a solid strategy to deliver our advanced reactor technology and built the company, capabilities, and team to achieve it. Now, our focus turns to execution.

The successful completion of the ETU 1.0 testing campaign is a significant step forward on our path to commercialization, helping to de-risk our technology and realize cost and schedule certainty for our future commercial deployments.

Crucially, ETU 1.0 has served as a vehicle to exercise the supply chain and establish new capabilities within Kairos Power, including the production of high-purity fluoride salt coolant and specialized reactor components. The iterative development of the supply chain will be equally as important as refining the technology itself as we strive to build a company that can deliver not just one reactor but many reactors.

Over the course of the project, we’ve learned many lessons that will be transformational for future builds. We look forward to sharing some of these with you in the coming months. By tackling these challenges early in development and optimizing solutions over subsequent iterations, we buy down risk and avoid future hurdles, which will help us to move faster down the road.

As we race to deploy clean firm energy to meet rapidly growing demand, speed is important, but so is cost. We believe Kairos Power’s iterative development approach is the best way to bring a commercial product to market in time to impact climate change while moving quickly down the learning curve to achieve aggressive cost targets.

We look forward to sharing our continued progress with you in this newsletter. To help you follow along on our journey, we are adding this and all past issues to our website. We hope you’ll subscribe to receive these updates in your email inbox if you haven’t already.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to the Kairos Power team, local community members, and all those who support our mission to enable the world’s transition to clean energy. What we’re doing is not easy, but it’s important, and we could not do it without you.

– Mike Laufer, Kairos Power co-founder and CEO

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NRC Issues Construction Permit for Hermes Demonstration Reactor

Left to right: Sr. Director of Licensing Darrell Gardner, Chief Technology Officer Ed Blandford, V.P. of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Peter Hastings, Chief Executive Officer Mike Laufer, and Chief Nuclear Officer Per Peterson pictured in Kairos Power Headquarters with a certificate commemorating the issuance of the Hermes construction permit.

Kairos Power closed out 2023 on a high note with the receipt of our construction permit for the Hermes demonstration reactor. In December, the NRC voted to issue the permit for the reactor to be built at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A critical step on Kairos Power’s iterative path to commercialization, Hermes will demonstrate our ability to deliver affordable nuclear heat and help mitigate technology, licensing, supply chain, and construction risk to achieve cost certainty for future deployments.

“Hermes is the first non-water-cooled reactor to be approved for construction in the U.S. in over 50 years. This historic achievement is a testament to the concerted effort by the entire Kairos Power team aligned with our iterative approach to licensing KP-FHR technology,” said Peter Hastings, V.P. of Regulatory Affairs & Quality.

Kairos Power will break ground on its Oak Ridge campus in Summer 2024, starting with the facilities for ETU 3.0 and the Hermes demonstration reactor.

We are thrilled to achieve this major regulatory milestone and look forward to starting construction at the Hermes site in the coming months, building on a long and distinguished history of nuclear innovation in Oak Ridge.

What’s Next on the Licensing Front?

The NRC is currently reviewing Kairos Power’s construction permit application (CPA) for the proposed Hermes 2 demonstration plant, a new iteration that would build on the learnings from the first Hermes reactor, demonstrating the complete architecture of a commercial plant at reduced scale and supplying electricity to the grid. Recently, the NRC issued its draft Environmental Assessment for Hermes 2, which would be co-located with Hermes at Kairos Power’s site in Oak Ridge. The Hermes 2 CPA review is progressing on an accelerated timeline made possible by the success of the first Hermes CPA and is expected to conclude before the end of the year.

Earlier this year, the NRC also approved Kairos Power’s 12^th topical report (out of 12 submitted) to support the licensing of the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR). The use of topical reports increases the efficiency of the licensing process by gaining alignment with the NRC on safety-related topics to support future license applications. This approval continues Kairos Power’s ongoing, impactful engagement with the NRC. Cheers to the team for delivering another key milestone to ensure the safe design and operation of KP-FHR technology.

An Innovative Approach to Public-Private Partnerships

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (pictured with Kairos Power V.P. of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Peter Hastings) opened a new energy exhibit at DOE headquarters this spring featuring a 1:10 scale model of the Hermes demonstration reactor.

Just weeks after receiving the Hermes construction permit, Kairos Power signed a novel Technology Investment Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to implement a risk reduction funding award that will support the design, construction, and commissioning of Hermes via the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). Under the agreement, DOE will invest up to $303 million in the Hermes project using a performance-based, fixed-price milestone approach, wherein the company will receive defined payments upon demonstrating the achievement of significant project milestones.

“With the use of fixed-price milestone payments, this innovative contract provides real benefits to both Kairos Power and DOE to ensure the successful completion of the Hermes reactor. It allows us to remain focused on achieving the most important goals of the project while retaining agility and flexibility to move quickly as we learn key lessons through our iterative development approach,” said Mike Laufer, Kairos Power co-founder and CEO.

This investment by DOE will complement Kairos Power’s substantial private investment in the Hermes project and supporting infrastructure. Since being selected for the ARDP award, Kairos Power has made steady progress on our pathway to demonstration, standing up extensive testing and manufacturing infrastructure and advancing our fuel and molten salt coolant workstreams to deliver the Engineering Test Unit series, Hermes series, and beyond.

Engineering Test Unit 1.0 Concludes Operations

ETU 1.0 completed a successful test campaign this spring, generating operating experience and data that will inform future iterations.

The non-nuclear Engineering Test Unit 1.0 is the first of several major hardware demonstrations planned leading up to Kairos Power’s first commercial unit. This iterative development approach allows us to rapidly capture and integrate lessons learned from each iteration while establishing the infrastructure, capabilities, and credibility to deliver future builds.

The Kairos Power team commenced a rigorous, multi-month testing program with ETU 1.0 last fall after loading 12 metric tons of fluoride salt coolant into the system, making it the largest Flibe test ever built. ETU systems were put through their paces at 550+°C, checking off numerous accomplishments, including:

• Demonstrating online refueling with surrogate fuel via the Pebble Handling and Storage System
• Achieving the highest Flibe flow rate ever recorded at 3,000 gallons per minute
• Logging over 25,000 strokes of the Reactivity Control System
• Commissioning a first-of-its-kind chemistry control system to continuously monitor salt purity
• Completing over 2,000 hours of pumped salt operations

 

Operators conducted end-of-life tests before shutting down ETU 1.0 for decommissioning.

As ETU operations wound down, Kairos Power engineers conducted end-of-life tests to assess the performance of reactor systems under abnormal operating conditions. The anti-siphon test demonstrated an important safety feature of the KP-FHR design that limits coolant loss from the reactor vessel, keeping the core covered in the event of a primary pipe break. The freeze test allowed operators to validate the stability of ETU’s internal systems by observing how internal components responded to stresses created by temperature and phase changes.

The ability to perform such tests is one of the many benefits of starting with a non-nuclear iteration before progressing to a nuclear build. Pushing the system to its limits to understand what it’s capable of will pay many dividends, helping to ensure the performance and reliability of future deployments.

“With our iterative approach, Kairos Power aims to learn by building, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount from building and operating ETU,” said Edward Blandford, Kairos Power co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. “With this milestone, we now have the team, the knowledge, and the capabilities needed to successfully deploy Hermes and the iterations that will follow.”

Now, less than six months after commencing hot Flibe testing in ETU 1.0, we have concluded active operations, removed the salt coolant from the system, and commenced decommissioning. So, what’s next for the ETU program?

Making Way for ETU 2.0

ETU 2.0 modular skids are being built inside Kairos Power’s new Modular Systems Facility at our KP Southwest campus in Albuquerque, N.M.

Construction is already underway on the next ETU iteration, which will introduce new features and more closely resemble the final Hermes design. ETU 2.0 will be Kairos Power’s first iteration to demonstrate modular construction, which will enable our team to build complete subsystems and perform qualification testing in parallel before connecting modules together to assemble the final system.

These modular skids are being constructed inside our new Modular Systems Facility (MSF), which was recently cleared for occupancy by the City of Albuquerque. The Kairos Power team wasted no time moving in-progress skids for ETU 2.0 subsystems into their temporary new home.

Once ETU 1.0 decommissioning is complete, the team will begin installing finished ETU 2.0 modules inside the ETU enclosure. Construction is expected to last through the end of the year.

Connecting With Local Communities

In December 2023, Kairos Power partnered with the American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to launch a temporary exhibit dubbed Reaction Time: The Fluoride Salt Future.

Members of the community were invited to attend the ribbon-cutting celebration and be the first to explore the past and future of molten salt reactor technology, from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment in the 1960s to the proven technologies – TRISO coated particle fuel and molten fluoride salt “Flibe” coolant – that originated in Oak Ridge and are integral to Kairos Power’s advanced reactor technology.

Co-founders Mike Laufer, Per Peterson, and Edward Blandford joined Kairos Power team members in engaging with attendees and sharing the company’s plans to begin construction on our campus at the Heritage Center site in 2024.

Kairos Power employees shared their passion for clean energy with kids and families at AMSE’s Nuclear Energy Discovery Day in May.

In May, Kairos Power and AMSE once again joined together to host Nuclear Energy Discovery Day – an event featuring family-friendly, hands-on activities led by Kairos Power team members and other local nuclear industry representatives. Kids got their nuclear energy passports stamped at 12 different activity stations to earn an honorary Kairos Power Junior Engineer badge, while adults gathered to hear an update on the Hermes project from CTO and co-founder Edward Blandford.

We are grateful for the local support we’ve received from the Oak Ridge community and appreciate everyone who came out to visit with us at these events.

Until Next Time

Be sure to connect with Kairos Power on LinkedIn and X to continue following our progress as we ramp up for a busy summer of building.

Reading List

• What could the ‘nuclear renaissance’ hold for Tennessee? Thousands of high paying jobs – Knoxville News Sentinel
• Kairos Power Hermes nuclear reactor approved for Oak Ridge – Knoxville News Sentinel
• Oak Ridge may become home for three salt-cooled demonstration reactors – The Oak Ridger
• DOE, Kairos Unveil Milestone-Based Funding Agreement for Advanced Nuclear Demonstration Project – POWER Magazine
• Kairos Power Starts Operation of First Molten Salt System – DOE, Office of Nuclear Energy
• VIDEO: Kairos Power shares its plan to build in Oak Ridge – DOE, Oak Ridge YouTube