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.” A Texas A&M spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor in an email Wednesday the energy produced — up to a  gigawatt, or 1,000 megawatts, combined between all the companies’ reactors — would go into the Texas grid. The spokesperson did not provide additional details.

The spokesperson also said some reactors would be commercial-scale “and a palace to test the new technologies.”

“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 could 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.

Kairos Power is a company founded in 2016 and focused on nuclear reactors. It received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2023 to build a demonstration reactor.

Natura Resources is a reactor company that also has received a NRC construction permit in September to build a molten salt reactor.

Terrestrial Energy is a Canadian nuclear technology company working to produce thermal energy with zero emissions from its molten salt reactor design. It completed its Pre-Licensing Vendor Design Review with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in 2023.

Aalo Atomics is a nuclear reactor manufacturer that is working to potentially build a new experimental reactor facility at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. 

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.

Texas A&M is one of the companies that make up joint venture PanTeXas, the prime contractor for the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. However, the spokesperson told the Monitor that this project is separate from Pantex.Texas A&M was also a member of the Los Alamos National Security joint venture, the former prime contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.