Texas A&M set to host small modular nuclear reactors

By EPN Staff

Four nuclear companies will test their versions of new small modular reactors on land at Texas A&M University, the university announced.

Planners hope to have reactors up and running within 5 years, and they could ultimately feed more than a gigawatt of energy into Texas’ electric grid. The significance goes well beyond powering homes and businesses.

Dubbed “The Energy Proving Ground,” this 2,400-acre campus may host important advances as the nuclear industry tries to launch next-generation reactors in the United States.

Why it matters

Small modular nuclear reactors are one of the great hopes for carbon-free electricity generation. A number of tech companies, including Amazon, hope to use these relatively small facilities to power data centers and AI projects across the country.

So far there are no commercial grade SMRs in the United States. The first to be licensed was abandoned over ballooning cost concerns.

Even so, there is optimism. The Department of Energy says it has “long recognized the transformational value that advanced SMRs can provide,” and the department announced a $900 million initiative last year to push the technology forward.

The states of Texas and Utah, along with a nuclear energy company, argue in a recent lawsuit that over-zealous federal regulation is blocking a breakthrough.

In announcing their new project, Texas A&M leadership said one of the problems has been finding the right place to build these reactors – a hurdle cleared by dedicating space on A&M’s RELLIS campus, west of the main campus in College Station.

The projects

Four companies plan to build at the site:

• Kairos Power, which said it wants to “standardize a fully modular plant design that is efficient, affordable, and repeatable to drive toward cost certainty.”
• Natura Resources, which has already worked with the university to develop its MSR-1 demonstration system.
• Terrestrial Energy, which says it plans to site an Integral Molten Salt Reactor at the campus.
• Aalo Atomics, which says it’s “exploring the potential to deploy several Aalo Pods, each containing 5 x Aalo-1 reactors and 1 turbine” at the site.

The university said in its announcement that A&M officials have “streamlined the regulatory process to allow the four companies to quickly get their reactors operational," and that the university has begun the permitting process with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Other universities have much smaller research reactors on campus, but if Texas A&M wins that permit, it will be the first U.S. university with a commercial nuclear reactor site license, the university said.

“The agreements that the Texas A&M System has with Kairos, Natura, Terrestrial and Aalo are going to change the energy landscape for the whole country,” Joe Elabd, vice chancellor for research at the Texas A&M System, said when the project was announced.

“The Energy Proving Ground will allow these companies to safely test their SMRs and set the stage for deploying small nuclear reactors across the country.”