Today we had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Mike Laufer, Co-Founder and CEO of Kairos Power, for a robust nuclear-focused discussion. Kairos recently marked its nine-year anniversary and has grown to 500+ employees across its headquarters in Alameda, CA, its manufacturing development campus in Albuquerque, NM, and its Hermes Demonstration Reactor Campus in Oak Ridge, TN. Kairos is developing its fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR), which pairs TRISO pebble fuel with a low-pressure molten-salt coolant (“Flibe”) and is designed for modular deployment, including a two-reactor/one-turbine configuration delivering up to ~150 MWe. The company’s Oak Ridge program includes Hermes 1, the first non-water-cooled reactor to receive an NRC construction permit, and Hermes 2, a commercial-scale demonstration plant intended to supply electricity to the grid. Mike earned his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. His research included work in reactor safety, design, licensing, and code validation for advanced non-light water reactors. We were thrilled to visit with Mike.
In our conversation, Mike shares the early vision behind Kairos, the company’s focus on U.S. electricity markets and building a reactor that can compete on cost, and their strategy centered on iterative hardware demonstrations and vertical integration. We discuss system-level parallelization, developing upstream/downstream “balance-of-plant” elements alongside reactor work to compress timelines and de-risk full-system integration, NRC engagement dating back to 2018, safety case fundamentals, sizing and product configuration, and how the Google partnership supports a sequence of deployments toward ~500 MW by 2035 (Google announcement linked here). Mike offers a realistic view of the nuclear learning curve and what it takes to drive down cost and schedule uncertainty over successive projects, how Kairos structured the Google deployment pathway, and the importance of setting achievable targets. We touch on how SMR winners and losers will be determined by project execution and delivery, not announcements, and Mike highlights common pitfalls in the conventional U.S. nuclear project model, including fragmented roles and misaligned incentives. We discuss Kairos’s centralized “hub” model with clear decision-making authority, its approach to validating partners and execution steps at smaller scale before taking on multi-billion-dollar FOAK risk, and how the organization maintains efficiency by balancing multiple deliverables and hiring “wildly competent” people comfortable with ambiguity. We also cover how commodity inflation and supply-chain depth affect planning, Kairos’s focus on strategic supplier partnerships, particularly in steel, concrete, and precast concrete, the importance of public trust and earning long-term community support, how non-nuclear test systems build real operating capability and flexible operating models, how AI may eventually improve execution and reliability, and much more. We’re very grateful to Mike for sharing his time and expertise with us.
Mike Bradley kicked off the show by noting that the 10-year U.S. bond yield appears to have temporarily stabilized around 4.2% and is awaiting Wednesday’s FOMC rate decision. Most expect the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged, though volatility could ensue if they don’t! On the crude oil front, WTI price has inched up to $62/bbl amid continued bearishness in financial contract length and recent severe winter weather. There’s speculation that this Polar Vortex (which we’ve dubbed the “Polar Pig”) has reduced U.S. oil production by ~1.5mmbpd. On the natural gas front, the Polar Pig has spiked prompt U.S. natural gas price to ~$6/MMBtu (intraweek peak of ~$7.50/MMBtu) and the 12-month natural gas strip to ~$4.25/MMBtu. Over the past week, U.S. natural gas production has fallen to ~95bcfd (~15bcfd decline), and U.S. LNG exports have fallen to ~11bcfd (~8-9bcfd decline). In broader equities, the S&P 500 was up modestly this week while the DJIA was down over 400 points due to a significant pullback in several U.S. health insurers. Cyclical sectors continue to be the YTD market leaders with Energy and Materials up over 10% and with a handful of metals hitting all-time highs. On the energy equity front, Oil Services is by far the biggest subsector outperformer this year (up ~23%) with the Big Three Oil Service companies (BKR, HAL and SLB) up 27% on average. He ended by highlighting that SMR companies are up 20% on average this year and up ~165% on average over the last 12 months. Brett Rampal also joined and added his nuclear perspective and questions to the discussion.
We look forward to keeping in touch with Mike and following Kairos’s progress. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!