This Oak Brook, Ill., location will be a demonstration and office facility for Nano Nuclear’s Kronos MMR project. (Photo: Nano Nuclear)
The Oak Brook facility is Nano Nuclear’s second U.S. site dedicated to physical test work, with a facility in Westchester County, N.Y., being the first. As many as 60 nuclear engineers, researchers, and support staff will work at the Oak Brook location as components of the Kronos MMR are constructed and tested, according to the company.
The work will take place in collaboration with construction and regulatory licensing activities performed for a research reactor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Benefits: The Kronos MMR is a Gen IV nuclear energy system based on high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor technology. It is meant to provide electric power and process heat for co-located industries, including data and AI centers, chemical and industrial operations, and population centers. The reactor, which can generate as much as 45 MWt, is designed to be transported by road and assembled on-site as “part of a multisystem deployment to allow for scaling and lowering levelized cost of electricity,” according to Nano Nuclear.
Canada testing: The company also plans to conduct additional demonstrations of Kronos at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. The reactor was the first small modular reactor to enter the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s formal licensing review.
