2024-08-06 13:30:00
This is a first in the United States. Kairos Power has obtained authorization to build the first fourth-generation nuclear reactor. generation in the country, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Named Hermes, this low-power demonstrator is not, however, intended to produce electricity for the grid.
Scheduled to come into operation in 2027, Hermes is intended to validate the operation of the American start-up’s high-temperature reactor, which is based on molten salt technology. This aims to dissolve the fissionable fuel in a molten salt (fluoride) responsible for transmitting heat to an exchanger. The last prototype of this type was already housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It closed its doors in… 1969.
One step ahead of Bill Gates
In parallel with the construction of Hermes, which began on July 17, Kairos Power has launched the construction of a non-nuclear version of its reactor, named ETU 3.0. This should make it possible to study the operation of all the machinery around the nuclear core, in order to optimize its construction, performance and maintenance.
Both projects will be assembled from modules manufactured in the Kairos production plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They should thus allow the validation of the modular construction methods of the reactor and therefore the economic equation of the start-up. It has already invested more than 100 million dollars in the manufacture of Hermes, which will benefit from 303 million dollars of aid from the American Department of Energy.
With this project, Kairos Power is taking a lead over its American competitor TerraPower, co-founded by Bill Gates, which has still not received authorization to build its first reactor.
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