⚛️Google Just Made Advanced Nuclear Real

On August 18, Google, Kairos Power, and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced a three-way deal to deploy Hermes 2, a 50 MWe Generation IV molten salt reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

This is no pilot project quietly simmering in a DOE lab: TVA has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) to buy electricity from the plant, making it the first U.S. utility to commit to power from a next-gen nuclear reactor.

The Hermes 2 deployment brings together a tripartite structure:

Kairos Power is developing the Hermes 2 reactor, building on its NRC-permitted demonstration site near Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

TVA is providing the transmission and market integration, purchasing electricity through a long-term offtake deal and allocating clean energy credits to Google.

Google is assuming some of the project’s financial risk by helping funding first-of-a-kind development costs, and in return, receives clean energy attributes to match local data center demand.

This model, corporate demand + utility integration + public-private innovation, could become a replicable framework for commercializing SMRs across the U.S. grid.

Unlike legacy light-water reactors, Hermes 2 uses a molten fluoride salt coolant and operates at low pressure, offering both passive safety features and cost-reduction potential. The plant will initially deliver 50 MWe, with later designs scaling to 75 MWe and more.

This is the second step in a broader 500 MW agreement signed by Google and Kairos in 2024, which aims to scale the tech across multiple deployments through 2035.

This agreement does several things at once:

• Validates market demand for firm, carbon-free baseload from large energy users

• Tests a commercial pathway for deploying Gen IV reactors under real market conditions

• Demonstrates a viable public-private risk-sharing model, where utilities aren’t saddled with first-of-a-kind costs

• Sets a precedent for other utilities, tech companies, and developers exploring clean firm power options

And maybe most importantly: it shows that advanced nuclear has moved beyond the lab and into the real world.

⛽Fuel the Renaissance: DOE Launches Nuclear Fuel Consortium

The U.S. government is not just cheering for a nuclear comeback, it’s engineering one.

Last week, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the creation of the Defense Production Act (DPA) Consortium, a new industry-government alliance designed to fix one of nuclear’s most stubborn bottlenecks: America’s reliance on foreign-enriched uranium.

Despite having 94 operating reactors and producing nearly 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, the U.S. currently lacks the domestic capacity to fuel its own fleet.

The consortium is the next step in President Trump’s executive order to “reinvigorate the nuclear industrial base.”

By invoking the Defense Production Act, the DOE can now negotiate voluntary agreements with private companies across the entire nuclear fuel supply chain and coordinate planning in a way that avoids antitrust headaches.

Translation: a legal shortcut to accelerate America’s reindustrialization of uranium.

This new initiative won’t just focus on enrichment. It’s designed to build resilience across the full nuclear fuel cycle, including:

• Mining and milling

• Conversion and enrichment

• Deconversion and fabrication

• Recycling and reprocessing

Acting Assistant Secretary Mike Goff made the stakes clear: “There are major gaps in our nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure that leave the United States heavily dependent on foreign sources of enriched uranium.”

The fix, in the DOE’s eyes, is coordination.

The first meeting of the consortium is set for October 14, and the DOE is now actively recruiting members. Participation is voluntary, but companies must apply and be approved to join.

All of this comes as the U.S. eyes a dramatic expansion in nuclear capacity. Washington is targeting a fourfold increase in nuclear generation by 2050. Without a domestic fuel strategy, that growth could stall before it even begins.

This is also a key piece of the puzzle for SMR deployment and for ending Russia’s dominance in enrichment.

The DPA Consortium may not make headlines the way a new reactor groundbreaking does, but make no mistake, it’s one of the most important moves yet in the U.S. nuclear revival: the renaissance needs uranium, and the U.S. just took a major step toward controlling its own supply.

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🎥 I Went Into a Nuclear Plant and It Changed How I Think About Radiation

You already know radiation isn’t some mysterious death ray, but even seasoned nuclear advocates might be surprised by how weirdly intuitive it becomes when you walk inside a working plant.

In this episode of SmarterEveryDay, a channel trusted by 11 million subscribers, Destin suits up and heads into an operational reactor to explore what radiation really is, how it behaves, and why most people (even the smart ones) get it wrong.

If you’ve ever tried to explain decay chains at a dinner party, this one’s for you.

Check it out👇

🇸🇪 Sweden Joins the Global Nuclear Power Race

After four decades of nuclear hibernation, Sweden just took a major step back onto the global stage.

State-owned utility Vattenfall has officially downselected GE Vernova and Rolls-Royce SMR as finalists for a new fleet of modular reactors at the Ringhals site. This will mark the country’s first new nuclear build since the Cold War.

Vattenfall is evaluating either five BWRX-300s from GE or three Rolls-Royce SMRs, both delivering around 1,500 MW in total capacity. That’s roughly one-third of Sweden’s current nuclear output.

And the project could expand: another 1,000 MW is already being scoped for the adjacent Ringhals 1 and 2 site.

The shortlist follows a year-long evaluation with criteria including fuel availability, licensing pathways, site compatibility, staffing needs and, perhaps most importantly, political and investor confidence.

Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch was quick to frame the announcement as a strategic milestone: “Sweden now takes its place in the global nuclear power race.” she said. “We create long-term conditions for investors, put technology before ideology, and safety before short-term solutions.”

The Swedish Energy Agency has already designated Ringhals as a “national interest” site for future energy projects. That means grid access, industrial support, and political tailwinds are in place, rare advantages for a nuclear build.

Even better: both shortlisted designs are gaining global traction. The BWRX-300 is under construction in Canada and moving through the U.S. NRC process. Rolls-Royce has won UK and Czech bids. Both offer the potential for serial deployment, meaning lower costs and faster replication.

⚛️For the Nu-clearly Curious

The agreement Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco) signed earlier this year with Westinghouse to end their intellectual property dispute reportedly includes a clause requiring Korea to provide Westinghouse with goods, services and royalties amounting to $825 million for every nuclear reactor that Korea exports outside of the country for the next 50 years.

German industry to depend on European neighbours for competitive green power says Thyssenkrupp CEO
The head of steelmaker Thyssenkrupp has said Germany will not be able to produce green electricity domestically at competitive rates and would have to rely on other regions to supply it.

Pentagon backs X-energy’s mini nuclear reactor to boost military energy resilience
The DoD and the Air Force are working with X-energy to further develop a 3-10 MW microreactor that can be used to power military bases. The reactor has already started being developed, under the military's Project Pele.

Malaysia launches nuclear energy feasibility study
The Malaysian government is carrying out an assessment to examine the role of nuclear energy as "one of the clean, stable and competitive electricity sources in the country's future energy mix".

🧪Nuclear Doping

Welcome back to Atomic Alternatives, where we explore the unexpected ways nuclear technology shows up in the real world.

This week’s feature: Neutron Transmutation Doping, a fancy term that basically means zapping silicon with neutrons to make it better.

To build high-performance semiconductors, you need to “dope” ultra-pure silicon with small amounts of other elements.

And for the most precise doping possible, there’s a nuclear solution: place the silicon inside a research reactor and bombard it with neutrons.

Some of the silicon-30 atoms absorb a neutron and transform into phosphorus-31, which happens to be the perfect dopant.

The result is silicon with electrical properties that stay consistent across the entire material. That consistency is critical for electronics that need to operate reliably under pressure.

Where does it show up?

• Power grid components

• Electric trains and vehicles

• Spacecraft systems

• High-end chips that require uniformity and precision

So while it sounds like sci-fi, Neutron Transmutation Doping is already fueling the backbone of our electrified, digital lives, one neutron at a time.

Thanks for reading. Until next time: stay curious, stay critical (like a reactor), and keep glowing 😎

– Fredrik
📬 [email protected]
🔗 nuclearupdate.com

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