en.Wedoany.com Reported - The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Kairos Power's request to extend the completion date of its Hermes 1 demonstration reactor construction permit by 28 months.

In December 2023, Kairos Power received a construction permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the Hermes 1 molten salt-cooled demonstration reactor, to be located at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It is the first non-water-cooled reactor approved for construction in the United States in more than 50 years. The permit stipulated that construction must be completed no later than December 31, 2026.

In July 2024, Kairos Power broke ground on the scaled demonstration project for its KP-FHR fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor technology, with excavation work completed in October. Safety-related construction activities under NRC oversight began on May 1 last year, starting with the construction of pier columns that form part of the building's foundation.

On March 24 of this year, Kairos Power submitted an application to the NRC requesting a modification to the Hermes 1 reactor construction permit, extending the completion date to April 30, 2029. The company stated that the extension request was due to development delays caused by the fact that the design and construction of the Hermes test reactor facility were the first of their kind. It requested NRC approval by October 30 of this year to allow construction to continue. Meanwhile, Kairos Power stated that it had revised its estimate of the time and resources required to complete the facility, with completion expected in 2028.

On April 21, the NRC published a notice in the Federal Register conducting an environmental assessment of Kairos Power's request to modify the permit, concluding that it would have no significant impact.

Hermes 1 is a 35 MW (thermal) non-power generation version of the company's KP-HFR fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor. Kairos Power submitted a construction permit application for Hermes 2 in July 2023. Hermes 2 is a proposed two-unit demonstration plant designed to leverage lessons from Hermes 1 and demonstrate the full architecture of a future commercial plant. In November 2024, the NRC approved the permit. Last week, Kairos Power held a groundbreaking ceremony for Hermes 2 in Oak Ridge. This plant will generate electricity and is the first project to be deployed under the agreement Kairos Power signed with Google in 2024 to develop an advanced reactor fleet. It will supply up to 50 MW of power to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) grid, helping to decarbonize Google's data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.

Kairos states that the Hermes demonstration reactors are designed to reduce technical, licensing, supply chain, and construction risks for the KP-HFR technology, achieving cost certainty, with commercial deployment planned for the early 2030s.

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