Abilene, Texas To Become Hub for Advanced Nuclear Energy Development
The small West Texas city of Abilene is better known for country music and rodeos than advanced nuclear physics. But that's where scientists are entering the final stretch of a race to boot up the next generation of American atomic energy.
Amid a flurry of nuclear startups around the country, Abilene-based Natura Resources is one of just two companies with permits from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct a so-called "advanced" reactor. It will build its small, one megawatt molten salt reactor beneath a newly-completed laboratory at Abilene Christian University, in an underground trench 25 feet deep and 80 feet long, covered by a concrete lid and serviced by a 40-ton construction crane.
The other company, California-based Kairos Power, is building its 35 megawatt test reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the 80-year capital of American nuclear power science. Both target completion in 2027 and hope to usher in a new chapter of the energy age.
"A company and school no one has heard of has gotten to the forefront of advanced nuclear," said Rusty Towell, a nuclear physicist at Abilene Christian University and lead developer of Natura's reactor. "This is going to bless the world."
The U.S. Department of Energy has been working for years to resuscitate the American nuclear sector, advancing the development of new reactors to meet the enormous incoming electrical demands of big new industrial facilities, from data centers and Bitcoin mines to chemical plants and desalination facilities.
Leaders in Texas, the nation's largest energy producer and consumer, have declared intentions to court the growing nuclear sector and settle it in state. The project at Abilene Christian University is just one of several early advanced reactor deployments already planned here.
Dow Chemical plans to place small reactors made by X-energy at its Seadrift complex on the Gulf Coast. Last month, Natura announced plans to power oilfield infrastPost too long. Click here to view the full text.
