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.”