Kairos Power broke ground Friday on what could become North America’s first commercial advanced reactor.
The Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2024 and is scheduled for completion by 2030. That puts it in close competition with GE Vernova Hitachi and Bill Gates’s startup TerraPower to build North America’s first commercial advanced reactor.
The company announced last August that Hermes 2 would supply up to 50 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority grid, helping to decarbonize Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama. The NRC approved construction for a test reactor, but Kairos expects it can get approval to run the facility as a plant as it seeks an operating license.
Kairos is one of over a dozen startups looking to introduce advanced reactors — a term that refers to Generation IV reactors, which use nonwater coolants, as well as small reactors. Kairos is going for both angles: a fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature small modular reactor.
