Chancellor John Sharp announced Tuesday he has offered land near the Texas A&M University campus to four nuclear reactor companies so they can build the latest small modular reactors, or SMRs. Until now, reactor manufacturers — along with the most powerful names in Big Tech — have not been able to find a suitable place to build clusters of nuclear reactors that can supply the power needed for artificial intelligence endeavors, data centers and other projects…
Chief executive officers from four nuclear companies — Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Terrestrial Energy and Aalo Atomics — all have agreed to work with the System to bring reactors to Texas A&M-RELLIS), a 2,400-acre technology and innovation campus in Bryan, Texas, as part of a project dubbed “The Energy Proving Ground.”
At the site, the companies will work toward bringing commercial-ready technologies to the System land and using the project to test the latest prototypes. The first reactors could be constructed within five years.
I have heard of Kairos and Terrestial Energy. I have no idea about Natura or Aalo Atomics. Kairos is currently building some test demonstration plants in Tennessee to prove their technology. The Hermes 2 plant will evidently produce electricity. Start up of the first reactor is scheduled for 2027.
All of these plants will need to go through the NRC licensing process, so Kairos probably has the advantage of being furthest along.
Also in Texas, Natura Resources plans to install at least one SMR to clean up fracking water used in the oil patch. The cleaned water can then be used for crop irrigation, etc.
From the link… Natura announced in July last year that it had joined the consortium to evaluate the deployment of Natura’s molten salt reactor technology to meet energy and water needs in the Permian Basin in a partnership dubbed Fortifying the Future.
TxPWC was established by the Texas legislature in 2021 to focus on the potential for beneficial uses of treated produced water outside the oil and gas industry of the Permian basin (produced water is water that is produced as a byproduct of oil and gas extraction, and is typically salty or brackish as well as containing hydrocarbon residues).
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The Natura reactor concept uses molten salt as the fuel and coolant. Molten salt reactors are popular on the internet, but nobody has actually built one since the 1960s. Its a good idea if they can deal with all of the corrosion and other chemistry issues associated with the liquid fuel concept.