Texas A&M offers land for companies to build SMRs

Texas A&M University announced Tuesday it would offer land to four advanced nuclear reactor companies to build small modular reactors.

According to a press release by the university, reactor manufacturers have been looking for a piece of land large enough to build clusters of reactors to generate a power supply “needed for artificial intelligence endeavors, data centers and other projects.”

“Plain and simple: the United States needs more power,” John Sharp, the university’s chancellor, said in the release. “And nowhere in the country, other than Texas, is anyone willing to step up and build the power plants we need.”

In a project dubbed “The Energy Proving Ground,” the four companies – Kairos Power, Natura Resources, Terrestrial Energy and Aalo Atomics – and their CEOs agreed to bring reactors to Texas A&M-RELLIS, a 2,400-acre technology and innovation campus in Bryan, Texas. The first reactors are to be constructed within five years, given regulatory approvals. 

“We are excited about the momentum for new nuclear deployment at Texas A&M-RELLIS and its potential to support U.S. energy security and continued economic growth,” Mike Laufer, co-founder and CEO of Kairos Power, said in the release.

In a livestreamed announcement of the project, Sharp said that a “renaissance” in nuclear power was happening, and that the project “is ground zero for where that renaissance is going to be”

“Either you go to nuclear power or you end up with massive shortages of power,” Sharp said.