Tennessee and Kairos Power officials have unveiled plans to build a privately funded, low-power demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Kairos Power will invest $100 million and create 55 jobs to deploy the low-power demonstration reactor at the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge.
Kairos Power’s low-power demonstration reactor, called Hermes, will demonstrate the company’s capability to deliver low-cost nuclear heat. The Hermes reactor is a scaled version of Kairos Power’s Fluoride Salt-Cooled High Temperature Reactor (KP-FHR), an advanced reactor technology that aims to be cost competitive with natural gas in the U.S. electricity market in order to provide carbon-free, affordable and safe energy. The project will be a redevelopment of a site at the Heritage Center, a former U.S. Department of Energy site complex.
Scheduled to be operational in 2026, the Hermes reactor will move forward the iterative development process from prototype toward commercial scale by demonstrating complete nuclear systems, including manufacturing capabilities for critical components, testing the supply chain and facilitating licensing certainty for the fluoride salt-cooled high temperature reactor.
Kairos Power received $303 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and Office of Nuclear Energy’s program for Risk Reduction projects to support the design, licensing and construction of the Hermes low-power demonstration reactor. Hermes is intended to lead to the development of the Kairos Power KP-X, a commercial-scale KP-FHR.
