Oak Ridger by Carolyn Krause 10/10/2025
Kairos Power will work with ORNL for 3D printing of carbon-fiber molds for concrete structuresKey Points• Kairos Power is building advanced nuclear reactors on a 185-acre site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
• The company is collaborating with Google and the Tennessee Valley Authority to supply power for AI data centers.
• Its Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant aims to supply up to 50 megawatts of electricity to the TVA grid by 2030.
• Kairos Power is working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to use 3D-printed molds for complex concrete structures.
Marty Bryan, director of Tennessee site integration for Kairos Power, said he’s happy to see construction underway on the 185-acre Oak Ridge site the company acquired in 2021 as part of a $100 million investment. It was once the site of the K-31 and K-33 gaseous diffusion plants that enriched uranium for nuclear power plants.
Bryan, who grew up in the area and earned a degree from the University of Tennessee’s nuclear engineering department, provided updates on Kairos Power’s progress, plans and partners to an Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning class recently. The class attendees gathered at the new William J. Wilcox K-25 Interpretive Center. From there they and other visitors going outside or up to the second-floor platform could easily see the top of Engineering Test Unit 3.0 now being completed on the Kairos Power site.
Bryan described a new collaboration between Kairos Power and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which developed two technologies years ago that will be incorporated in Kairos Power’s next-generation nuclear reactors. The new relationship involves the 3D printing of carbon-fiber molds at an ORNL facility for making on the Kairos Power site concrete structures with sophisticated geometries.
Among the uses of complex concrete structures with different shapes will be reactor building enclosures and shielding to protect workers from low-level radiation that will be emitted by the company’s two planned Hermes reactors. Both have received construction permits from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but not reactor operating licenses yet. Bryan will be dealing with licensing issues.
He said Kairos Power, which is based in Alameda, California and has more than 500 employees, seeks to build clean energy sources that are “affordable yet safe” and that can compete economically with natural gas sources of electricity in the 2030s. He and his colleagues answered questions from the class attendees about aspects of Kairos Power’s plans.
Plant will be supplying TVA with power for Google AI data centers
Kairos Power announced in August that it is now collaborating with Google and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Under the power purchase agreement, the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant that Kairos will build on the Oak Ridge site will be starting by 2030 to supply the TVA grid with up to 50 megawatts (MW) of reliable 24/7 electricity for powering Google’s energy-hungry AI data centers in Alabama and Tennessee.
More:
https://www.oakridger.com/story/news/local/2025/10/10/official-gives-update-on-kairos-powers-construction-plans-in-oak-ridge/86367200007/ 
