Kairos Power's reactor plans for Oak Ridge and beyond
Three construction permits from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for three proposed advanced nuclear reactors that will be cooled with molten salt instead of the water used in conventional reactors. A partnership with Google, which wants nuclear power as a reliable source of electricity for its power-hungry data centers to be used to test artificial intelligence chatbots and other models.
A completed excavation of an Oak Ridge site for the new reactors that will use uranium fuel, located where a gaseous diffusion plant once produced enriched uranium for nuclear power plants.
Those were some of Kairos Power's achievements in the past year or so, starting in December 2023 when the first construction permit was granted to the company based in Alameda, California.
An update on Kairos Power's progress in 2024 and timelines over the next decade for its advanced Generation IV nuclear reactor projects in Oak Ridge and elsewhere was provided by company officials during a recent Zoom call with a volunteer reporter for The Oak Ridger.
Edward Blandford, Kairos Power's co-founder and chief technology officer, and Ashley Lewis, senior marketing communications manager, were on the call from California.
On Dec. 12, 2023, the NRC voted to issue a construction permit to Kairos Power for the Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor. Kairos Power said that its first test reactor will show the company's capability to deliver nuclear heat as part of its quest to provide safe, affordable, carbon-free nuclear power to meet growing demands for electricity and to delay climate change.
The 35-megawatt-thermal (35 MWt) high-temperature nuclear reactor, which will be cooled by a molten fluoride salt, was the first U.S. non-water-cooled reactor to receive a construction permit in more than 50 years. The company calls its concept the Kairos Power fluoride-salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR) technology.
In September 2023, the NRC accepted for review Kairos Power's construction permit applications for the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant, which were submitted in July 2023. The demonstration plant would consist of two FHRs with power generation systems for producing steam to generate electricity that can be fed to the grid. On Nov. 21, 2024, Kairos Power received two construction permits from the NRC for the two 35-megawatt (35-MWt) reactors to be housed in the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant in Oak Ridge. The heat from the reactors is carried by the molten salt coolant to the steam generation system.
All three reactors will be built on the K-33 site, where a gaseous diffusion plant for enriching uranium was built in 1954, operated until 1985 and decommissioned and demolished in 2011. The site, known by many people as the "K-25 Site," is part of the Heritage Center industrial park, located in the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge.
In 2024, the K-33 site was excavated by a Kairos Power contractor, Barnard Construction Co. Inc., of Bozeman, Montana. Blandford, who lives in Oakland, California, said he spent part of the year in Oak Ridge, overseeing the excavation and working with other partners to 'repurpose the brownfield site.'
Blandford is responsible for all engineering and technology development functions at Kairos Power. These include hardware demonstrations, fuel and salt supply infrastructure, manufacturing, supply chain and procurement, environmental health and safety, construction management and engineering operations.
Asked about the excavation, Blandford said that the contractor, along with the environmental remediation support of Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA), had to remove considerable amounts of underground concrete and electrical duct banks left over from the historic gaseous diffusion plant. Duct banks that protect underground electrical wires, footer pedestals and foundation footings below the surface soil were removed by Barnard staff.
'The concrete and other material, such as lead and asbestos, must be managed appropriately,' Blandford said. 'We are coordinating with the Department of Energy to ensure proper removal of material from the Hermes footprint. That's a process we're working through now.'
A Kairos Power video provides 'excavation by the numbers' information on the work at the K-33 site: 4,900 cubic yards of topsoil, stripped and stockpiled on the site; 182 remnant concrete footers removed from the Hermes reactor footprint; 2,119 feet of remnant electrical duct banks removed; 52,900 cubic yards of soil, excavated and stockpiled onsite; 7,901 tons of densely, graded aggregate placed, and 17,000-plus staff hours completed by Kairos Power and its contractors.
In July 2024, Barnard and Kairos Power began collaborating on the excavation and preparation of the K-33 site for the 2025 pouring of concrete for the foundations and construction of two buildings. They are Kairos Power's third non-nuclear, molten salt Engineering Test Unit (ETU 3.0), which should be complete by late 2025 or early 2026, and the structure for the Hermes 1 Demonstration Reactor, which will follow it.
Kairos Power has projected that the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant housing two reactors and a shared turbine will be built and ready to operate 'toward the end of the decade,' Lewis said.
Results from the non-nuclear Engineering Test Unit series will inform the construction and operation of the Hermes reactors.
Engineering Test Unit 1.0 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, demonstrated the largest FLiBe salt system ever built after the unit was loaded with 14 tons of lithium fluoride (LiF) and beryllium fluoride (BeF2), the salt coolant that the Hermes reactors will use to remove heat from TRISO fuel pebbles. In February 2024, ETU 1.0 completed its pumped salt operations using surrogate non-nuclear fuel pebbles.
In a Jan. 30 news release, Kairos Power announced it had completed the design, fabrication and installation of the first internally produced reactor vessel for ETU 2.0, which is being completed in Albuquerque.
'It is the first reactor vessel to be fabricated in-house at Kairos Power's Manufacturing Development Campus in Albuquerque,' the news release stated. 'With ETU 2.0, the company is ramping up output of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) U-stamped pressure vessels, advancing the production of specialized reactor components and gaining proficiency in modular construction methods.'
ETU 3.0 and Hermes reactors will be built in Oak Ridge using modular construction techniques piloted at Kairos Power's Manufacturing Development Campus in Albuquerque. The reactor modules will be fabricated in Albuquerque and shipped to Oak Ridge for on-site assembly.
This year, Blandford said, the next phase of construction involves putting in 51 drilled concrete piers on the K-33 site. Each pier of this deep foundation system consists of a large-diameter concrete cylinder formed by pouring fresh concrete and installing reinforcing steel into a drilled shaTft. Each pier will support an above-ground structure by transferring its weight to more stable soil or rock.
Blandford said the drilled piers being currently built are for the non-nuclear ETU 3.0 building. The experience that the Barnard-Kairos team gains from that construction will help them put in the drilled piers for the Hermes 1 reactor later this year.
This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Kairos Power's reactor plans for Oak Ridge and beyond
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