New Energy
US Approves New Kind of Nuclear Reactor for First Time in 50 Years
- US hasn’t authorized a new kind of reactor in half a century
- Kairos’s scalable technology uses molten salt as coolant
An artist rendering of the Hermes low-power demonstration reactor.
Source: Kairos PowerThis article is for subscribers only.
For the first time in more than 50 years the US granted permission for a new type of nuclear reactor, a sign regulators are becoming more open to different approaches to producing power from splitting the atom.
California startup Kairos Power LLC received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build its Hermes demonstration reactor in Tennessee. While commercial reactors in use today are cooled by water, the Kairos technology uses molten fluoride salt as a coolant.