Small Modular Nuclear Reactors - Untested, Unsafe.

For "Clean" Read "Greenwash."

Stocks of nuclear power companies have been rocketing upwards following the announcement, threadbare on details,  that Google has contracted to buy nuclear power for its data-centers from Kairos Power, a fledgling concern developing a novel brand of Small Modular Reactors that they claim will begin operating in 2030. 

The enthusiasm is understandable, given the ever-more apparent reality that the AI gold rush is entirely dependent on a massive boost in electricity supply for proliferating data centers which cannot be met by existing power-providers. Currently, nuclear power in the U.S. comes from a fleet of large, aging, and generally uneconomic reactors mostly built in the industry’s heyday fifty or so years ago. In this century, two Vogtie reactors in Georgia, finally completed this year, more than doubled in cost to $30 billion and were seven years late.  

Enthusiasts assert that Small Modular Reactors  would be far cheaper than the multi-billion behemoths of yesteryear, thanks not only to mass producing components offsite, thereby achieving economies of scale - hence the “modular” - but also the ability to dispense with costly safety features such as containment domes. In July this year Congress passed the “Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024,” or ADVANCE Nuclear Act, which among other things redirects the Nuclear Regulatory Commission mission statement from its mandate to protect public safety to “promote the societal benefits of nuclear power.”

Whereas most existing reactors, at least in the U.S., are light water reactors, so called because they use ordinary water to cool their hot radioactive cores,  proposed SMRs would use a variety of alternative coolants such as liquid sodium, which has a nasty propensity to catch fire or explode when in contact with water or air. 

For an informed, dispassionate assessment of SMRs, and in particular the Google - Kairos project, I contacted Dr. Edwin Lyman, Director of nuclear power safety in the Union of Concerned Scientist Climate and Energy Program.  Lyman, a physicist, has deployed his considerable expertise - rare among commentators on the subject - to evaluate the technology involved in the proliferating field of SMR projects. He is the author of the 2021 study of SMRS, Advanced isn’t Always Safer. 

Q. In what way is the Kairos technology “novel,” as they assert?