In Episode 26 of Gener8, we were excited to discuss some of the recent progress and future plans of nuclear energy development company Kairos Power. Peter Hastings, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality, and Jeff Olson, Vice President of Business Affairs and Finance, joined us to share the Kairos Power story and why they’ve been able to achieve some notable recent successes. In December of 2023, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a Construction Permit for Kairos’ Hermes test reactor demonstration project and we wanted to understand how best to understand the impacts and challenges of such a novel engagement. In addition to trying to understand the regulatory picture for Kairos, Jeff and Peter shared insights into the company’s iterative prototyping plans, the history of Kairos, and what future success might look like for the company and their projects. While years of progress remains for Kairos, we were excited to learn about an organization that has been able to navigate challenges that are sometimes described as intractable and how they plan to address the obstacles of tomorrow.

(One Technical/Programming Note: FLiBe is a term that is used a few times in our discussion and Peter and Jeff were nice enough to clarify what it means for us at one point; however, that segment had to be cut due to audio quality issues. FLiBe is a mixture of Lithium and Beryllium Fluoride salts that has characteristics that make it attractive for future developers of molten salt reactors, such as Kairos Power.)