Google, Kairos Power to launch small modular nuclear reactor in Tennessee
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The news: Google and Kairos Power have chosen Tennessee as the site for an advanced nuclear power plant to supply energy to Google’s data centres in the US southeast from 2030.
The numbers: The Hermes 2 reactor developed by Kairos Power will dispatch 50 megawatts of electricity.
The context: The companies said on Monday that the Tennessee Valley Authority grid (TVA) will purchase electricity from the reactor, making it the first utility in the US to sign an offtake agreement with an advanced nuclear plant.
CEO of TVA, Don Moul, said in a statement that Google’s move to help “shoulder the burden of the cost and risk” of the nuclear projects “keeps us from having to burden our customers with development of that technology. So it’s not just good for Google…its good for the United States.”
The reactor in Tennessee is the first to be launched as part of Google’s corporate agreement announced in October last year to buy nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors. The agreement will support 500 megawatts of advanced nuclear capacity, which the companies say is enough to power about 350,000 homes.
What they said: US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said: "The deployment of advanced nuclear reactors is essential to U.S. AI dominance and energy leadership…The Department of Energy has assisted Kairos Power with overcoming technical, operational, and regulatory challenges as a participant in the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, and DOE will continue to help accelerate the next American nuclear renaissance."
The sources: Google blog post, TVA press release
