Hard Lessons with Hot Helium

This week, we talk High Temperature Gas Reactors, or HTGRs, with
a Decouple favorite: reactor designer and nuclear historian
Nick Touran (What Is Nuclear | X). From the
first conceptual sketch of an HTGR in wartime labs to today’s
revival by players like X-energy and China’s fast-moving reactor
fleet, we dissect what makes HTGRs unique—both in engineering
promise and the difficulties that have long haunted their
success. With helium cooling, TRISO fuel, and ambitions beyond
electricity into process heat and industrial decarbonization,
HTGRs may be poised for a comeback. But will history repeat
itself, or finally break the cycle?


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