In a deal that marks the primary company settlement to deploy a number of small modular reactors (SMRs) within the U.S., Kairos Energy and Google have signed a Grasp Plant Growth Settlement that may facilitate the event of a 500 MW fleet of molten salt nuclear reactors by 2035 to energy Google’s knowledge facilities. The primary reactor is anticipated to be operational by 2030.
The settlement positions Alameda, California–primarily based Kairos Energy, developer of the fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR), to develop, construct, and function a collection of superior reactor energy vegetation. Kairos will promote the vegetation’ vitality, ancillary companies, and environmental attributes to Google underneath energy buy agreements (PPAs).
In keeping with Google Senior Director of Power and Local weather Michael Terrell, the preliminary section of labor will goal bringing Kairos’ first KP-FHR on-line “rapidly and safely” by 2030. That deployment will probably be adopted by further reactor deployments via 2035. Vegetation will probably be sited in “related service territories to produce clear electrical energy to Google knowledge facilities,” the businesses stated in a joint assertion on Oct. 14.
The multi-plant settlement represents a major enhance for Kairos, which has emerged as a stable frontrunner on the earth’s burgeoning superior nuclear market. “Having an settlement for a number of deployments is necessary to speed up the commercialization of superior nuclear vitality by demonstrating the technical and market viability of an answer crucial to decarbonizing energy grids whereas delivering much-needed vitality technology and capability,” famous Jeff Olson, Kairos Energy Vice President, Enterprise Growth & Finance.
“This early dedication from Google offers a robust buyer demand sign, which reinforces Kairos Energy’s continued funding in our iterative growth method and business manufacturing scale-up,” Olson underscored.
And for Google, it indicators definitive confidence in nuclear’s function in fulfilling skyrocketing energy demand projected from the tech firms’ knowledge facilities. Google, which has already signed 115 agreements—a mixed 14 GW—of PPAs for renewable capability—is dedicated to catalyzing new nuclear growth to bolster its personal web zero and 24/7 carbon-free vitality targets, Terrell stated.
A Crucial Buyer Demand Sign for Kairos
Kairos, an organization based in 2016, has been creating its molten salt know-how through a “speedy iterative” growth method, which incorporates {hardware} demonstrations and in-house manufacturing “to attain disruptive price discount and supply true price certainty for commercialization.”
The corporate not too long ago kicked off the development of Hermes, a 35-MWth iterative non-power demonstration molten salt nuclear reactor, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. When it comes on-line as anticipated in 2027, Hermes will grow to be Kairos’ first nuclear construct. That achievement follows substantial progress on a collection of Engineering Check Models (ETUs), that are non-nuclear built-in exams at the corporate’s KP-Southwest analysis and growth facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In tandem, the corporate has made headway on the manufacturing of high-purity fluoride salt coolant for its iterative reactor collection. Earlier this month, it broke floor on its Salt Manufacturing Facility at Kairos Energy’s Manufacturing Growth Campus in Albuquerque, an important facility that may make the most of a “proprietary chemical manufacturing course of” to supply Flibe, a chemically secure molten fluoride salt comprising a combination of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride salts (2LiF:BeF2) enriched in lithium-7. The fluoride salt will probably be used as a main warmth switch fluid in Kairos’ KP-FHR know-how. The distinctive heat-transfer medium will enable Hermes and future iterations to “function at low strain and performs an necessary function in radiological containment, which contributes to KP-FHR’s strong inherent security and simplifies its design,” Kairos famous on Oct. 2.
Kairos can be creating gas growth lab amenities at its Albuquerque campus to give attention to prototyping and innovation in design-build-test cycles to advance Kairos’s gas manufacturing capabilities previous to business deployment, metropolis paperwork counsel. The KP-FHR, notably, is designed to function at excessive temperatures and close to‐atmospheric strain, utilizing tri-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) particle gas in pebble kind with a carbonaceous‐matrix coated particle design.
Lastly, as a part of its iterative method, Kairos has marked quite a few regulatory milestones. In December 2023, the NRC granted Kairos a development allow for its 35-MWth Hermes “non-power” demonstration. The NRC’s approval for Hermes, notably, marked the federal regulator’s first inexperienced mild for the development of a non-water-cooled reactor in additional than 50 years.
The brand new partnership with Google provides one other integral layer of certainty to Kairos’ growth course of. The partnership settlement, notably, will leverage a milestone-based accountability course of, much like one Kairos pioneered as a part of a $303 million federal award it acquired underneath the Division of Power’s (DOE’s) Superior Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) danger discount pathway.
“Our partnership with Google will allow Kairos Energy to rapidly advance down the training curve as we drive towards price and schedule certainty for our business product,” stated Mike Laufer, Kairos Energy CEO and co-founder. “By coming alongside within the growth section, Google is greater than only a buyer. They’re a companion who deeply understands our progressive method and the potential it could actually ship.”
Google’s Key Goal: Speed up the Clear Power Transition
As Terrell defined in a weblog put up on Monday, Google’s crucial stems from a dedication to sustainability. In 2020, the corporate set a objective to run on 24/7 carbon-free vitality (CFE)—“each hour of each day on each grid the place we function”—by 2030. The corporate is pursuing a three-pronged method to attaining Scope 2 emission reductions: buying carbon-free vitality (CFE), accelerating new and improved applied sciences, and remodeling the vitality system via coverage, partnerships, and advocacy.
The feat isn’t simple: “Attaining 24/7 CFE is a much more complicated and technically difficult pursuit than yearly matching our vitality use with renewable vitality purchases, however we see this effort as essential to a much bigger image: scaling new, world options for clear vitality,” it says. In 2023, for instance, its efforts to extend CFE procurement confronted a lot of headwinds, together with “interconnection delays (similar to within the PJM grid area), greater growth prices and challenge demand, provide chain points, U.S. regulatory tariffs for photo voltaic modules, pure variability in technology, and continued load progress in sure areas with CFE market constraints (similar to within the U.S. and the Asia-Pacific area).”
Nonetheless, the tech big continues to pursue progressive pathways to attain its CFE ambitions. As Terrell famous, it was pivotal in pioneering company and industrial PPAs for renewables, beginning in 2010 with a landmark 20-year settlement for wind vitality in Iowa. The mannequin has allowed Google to straight buy renewable vitality on the wholesale degree, serving to to safe large-scale clear vitality for its knowledge facilities. By the top of 2023, it had signed greater than 115 agreements to buy 14 GW of fresh vitality at an estimated expenditure of $16 billion via 2040. However the mannequin has additionally catalyzed an enormous growth of recent wind and photo voltaic tasks. “This method has been extremely profitable: since 2008, company clear vitality consumers have unlocked practically 200 GW of recent photo voltaic and wind capability around the globe,” Google says.
Nevertheless, Google has since acknowledged that the method is restricted. “PPAs are sometimes remoted from broader grid planning and utility funding processes, and the variability of the climate can imply inconsistent photo voltaic and wind availability,” the corporate defined. “Subsequently, totally decarbonizing electrical energy techniques would require different applied sciences that may ship clear energy each time it’s wanted (also referred to as “clear agency capability”).” In June, it partnered with NV Power to launch a first-of-its-kind Clear Transition Tariff (CTT), a mechanism that may enable Google and different vitality customers to satisfy rising electrical energy demand with 24/7 carbon-free vitality from “firmer” carbon-free capability, similar to enhanced geothermal, long-duration vitality storage, and superior nuclear energy.
Securing a first-of-its-kind vitality provide settlement with Google, NV Power is now notably working with geothermal developer Fervo Power to ship 115 MW of recent enhanced geothermal energy to the CTT partnership and its full capability to Google. The settlement builds on Google’s backing of Fervo Power’s 3.5-MW Challenge Crimson. Google and Fervo signed the world’s first company settlement to develop the next-generation geothermal energy challenge in Nevada, and the challenge has since proved that Fervo’s know-how can ship enhanced geothermal energy at a business scale.
Google’s settlement with Kairos seeks comparable positive aspects with superior nuclear. “General, this deal will allow as much as 500 MW of recent 24/7 carbon-free energy to U.S. electrical energy grids and assist extra communities profit from clear and inexpensive nuclear energy,” Terrell wrote on Monday.
“By procuring electrical energy from a number of reactors—what consultants name an ‘orderbook’ of reactors—we are going to assist speed up the repeated reactor deployments which are wanted to decrease prices and convey Kairos Energy’s know-how to market extra rapidly,” he stated. “This is a crucial a part of our method to scale the advantages of superior applied sciences to extra individuals and communities and builds on our earlier efforts.”
Google’s Increasing Quest for Dependable Carbon-Free Power
The nuclear settlement is important for 2 key causes, Terrell stated. First, the “grid wants new electrical energy sources to assist [artificial intelligence (AI)] applied sciences which are powering main scientific advances, bettering companies for companies and prospects, and driving nationwide competitiveness and financial progress,” he stated. “This settlement helps speed up a brand new know-how to satisfy vitality wants cleanly and reliably, and unlock the total potential of AI for everybody.”
Second, nuclear vitality affords a round the clock, carbon-free energy supply that may meet electrical energy calls for always. By working intently with native communities, the deployment of superior nuclear reactors may assist drive the decarbonization of energy grids worldwide, he added. Along with its environmental advantages, Google sees nuclear as an financial driver. The DOE “estimates reaching 200 GW of superior nuclear capability within the U.S. by 2050 would require an extra 375,000 staff,” he stated.
In comparison with massive nuclear tasks, superior nuclear reactors provide “a brand new pathway to speed up nuclear deployment because of their simplified design and strong, inherent security,” he added. “The smaller dimension and modular design can cut back development timelines, enable deployment in additional locations, and make the ultimate challenge supply extra predictable.”
In keeping with Google’s June–launched 2024 Environmental Report, the tech big’s knowledge facilities around the globe consumed 24 TWh in 2023, which represents 7% to 10% of worldwide knowledge heart consumption and about 0.1% of worldwide energy demand. Nevertheless, final yr’s figures represented a 17% (3.5 TWh) soar within the firm’s knowledge heart energy consumption—although Google has stated that it strives to construct the “world’s most energy-efficient computing infrastructure.” The corporate additionally says that whereas it has maintained a 100% world renewable vitality match for seven years now, in 2023, its knowledge heart energy wants have been met by a worldwide common of about 64% CFE.
General, Google notes that in 2022, complete world knowledge heart energy consumption hovered at 340 TWh, translating to about 1.3% of worldwide electrical energy demand. The Worldwide Power Company (IEA) estimates knowledge facilities around the globe consumed rather more in 2022—460 TWh—and it suggests their complete consumption may surge sharply to greater than 1,000 TWh in 2026—roughly equal to Japan’s complete consumption. Different analysis teams counsel much more exponential progress. EPRI estimates that knowledge facilities may develop to eat as much as 9% of U.S. energy technology yearly by 2030, up from 4% of complete load in 2023.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
