Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE).

LCOE rolls a plant's whole lifetime — capital, fuel, operations, availability — into one number per unit of energy. What matters is which lever moves it most, and Kronos names those honestly.

LCOE

Lifetime cost ÷ lifetime energy produced

Breeder's top lever

Availability (capacity factor), then capital structure

Burner's top lever

Fuel (helium-3) price

Kronos status

Structure frozen; absolute margins are not

LCOE is the standard way to compare generators: total lifetime cost divided by total lifetime output. Two inputs dominate it — how much the plant costs and how often it runs. Kronos is explicit about which lever rules each machine.

• The breeder. Its LCOE is governed first by availability and then by capital structure — how the plant is built and financed — rather than by any single price. The company freezes this structure (the levers), not an absolute margin.
• The burner. Its LCOE is dominated by the price of helium-3, which does not yet exist at fleet scale. So the burner's LCOE is stated as a fuel gate, not a number.

Kronos deliberately does not publish a single headline LCOE, because an honest one for the burner would depend on a future fuel market. It publishes the levers instead.