The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has concluded after a safety review that a construction permit can be issued for Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 advanced demonstration facility at a site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The NRC said its staff had completed its final safety evaluation for the Hermes 2 plant and concluded “there are no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the construction permit for the facility”.
The Kairos application requests permission to build the demonstration facility with two 35-MW thermal test reactors, similar in design to the test reactor the NRC issued a construction permit for in 2023.
The fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactors (KP-FHRs) would share a power generation system. The company will have to submit a separate application for operating licences.
The Hermes demonstration reactor will be a key step on the path towards commercialising the KP-FHR technology.
The NRC said the staff will provide the safety evaluation and the final environmental assessment, which is on track to be completed later this summer, to the commission for the final phase of the licensing process later this year.
The commission will determine whether the staff’s review supports the findings necessary to issue the permit. It will then vote on whether to authorise the staff to issue the permit.
“We finished our review of Hermes 2 design nearly four months ahead of schedule, and using about 60 percent fewer resources than expected, using insights from our previous Kairos review,” said Andrea Veil, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
“We remain committed to applying these sorts of lessons learned to maintain safety while promptly and efficiently processing applications.”
Alameda, California–headquartered Kairos Power, a privately owned nuclear engineering, design and manufacturing company says it is “singularly focused” on the commercialisation of its KP-FHR technology.
In February he US Department of Energy (DOE) signed a technology investment agreement with Kairos Power to support the design, construction, and commissioning of the Hermes demonstration plant at Oak Ridge.
Kairos said it will get $303m (€279m) from the DOE in fixed payments under a performance-based, fixed-price approach upon achieving significant project milestones.
