Rendering of a proposed commercial advanced fission power plant in the United States
Provided by: Oklo Inc.
Nuclear power startup Oklo is close to initial construction of its first commercial microreactor, CEO Jacob DeWitt said in an interview with CNBC.
Oklo announced Wednesday that it has received permission from the Department of Energy to conduct on-site inspections of the proposed reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls.
Site investigations will focus on infrastructure planning, environmental studies and geotechnical evaluations.
“That will set the stage for us to do some initial site preparation work, what we call initial construction activities,” DeWitt said, who expects Oklo to break ground on the Idaho site in 2026 and plans to have the reactor operational by the following year.
But the Oklo plant has yet to receive approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which needs approval to build and operate it, after its initial application was rejected in 2022. The CEO acknowledged that there is a risk that the 2027 start-up date could be pushed back, depending on how long the NRC review takes.
Oklo, which aims to build, operate and sell power directly to customers under long-term contracts, went public in May through a merger with AltC Acquisition Corp., a SPAC owned by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Altman serves as Oklo’s chairman.
Demand for electricity is expected to soar: The technology industry is rushing to build data centers to handle the power-hungry calculations needed for artificial intelligence, while the country’s manufacturing sector expands and the economy becomes increasingly electrified.
The company’s Aurora microreactor promises a small, simple design that can range from 15 megawatts to over 100 megawatts. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average power output of nuclear reactors currently operating in the U.S. is about 1,000 megawatts.
“The industry is fundamentally inadequate.”
Oco shares have risen nearly 26% since Constellation Energy announced plans on Friday to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power Microsoft data centers. The company’s shares have fallen 54% since it listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
DeWitt said the Three Mile Island restart was “evidence” of how much the tech industry recognized “the growing demand for energy and the importance of securing that supply.”
“The hyperscalers’ approach is to try to secure as much capacity as possible from existing power plants, some of which may be their near-term power supply, so this makes sense,” DeWitt said.
But the nuclear industry is severely under-equipped to keep up with market interest, DeWitt said. “The problem is that the industry’s delivery in terms of products, business models and execution capabilities has been terrible,” he said.
“These are all elements that needed to be disrupted to change the paradigm,” he said, “and that’s where we really approached it from a different angle.”
NRC review is important
But Oklo faces its own challenges: The NRC rejected Oklo’s first license application because it lacked safety information. The company plans to apply again in 2025, DeWitt said, and is currently in the pre-application review process.
DeWitt said Oklo’s initial application was rejected because disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to conduct an in-person audit. Oklo submitted its application on March 11, 2020, the day the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic.
“Everything changed,” DeWitt said of the pandemic’s impact on the vetting process. “This missing information was missing primarily due to communication challenges.”
The CEO acknowledged that the NRC review could delay the 2027 start-up of the Idaho microreactor, but said, “There are certainly risks. Ultimately, we can’t control the NRC’s review timeline.”
Oklo could get a boost from the recently enacted ADVANCE Act, which directs the NRC to speed up decisions on applications for licenses to build and operate nuclear reactors.
Future Business
DeWitt said Oklo’s business is not dependent on when the Idaho plant comes online. The company has expressed interest in 1,350 megawatts through letters of intent with potential customers, up 93% from 700 megawatts in July 2023, according to the company’s most recent earnings release.
The CEO said Oklo aims to have the factory operational “multiple times per year” through 2028 and 2029. “From there, it’s a game of scaling the supply chain accordingly,” he said.
Oklo’s microreactors are ideal for data centers built in individual halls with energy demands of less than 50 megawatts, roughly the same size as the company’s factories, he said.
“They’re building them with modules that are very similar to how we power them, and that’s very intentional, so we can build with them,” DeWitt said.
DeWitt said nuclear fuel has been a major constraint for Oklo. In May, the U.S. banned uranium imports from Russia, which accounts for about 35% of U.S. nuclear fuel imports. The Biden administration is investing $2.7 billion to ramp up domestic production.
Oklo has partnered with US-based nuclear fuel supplier Centrus Energy, which began enrichment operations in Piketon, Ohio, in October last year, but DeWitt said the domestic supply chain is not currently capable of producing on the scale needed. But Oklo has secured the fuel it needs for its nuclear power plants in Idaho.
DeWitt said the company’s reactors have the ability to recycle fuel, which would help diversify the supply chain, but he said recycled fuel likely won’t be available in significant quantities until 2029 or later.
Oklo posted a net loss of $53 million for the six months ended June 30. The company is not yet profitable, which it expects to achieve when its first plants start producing electricity.
“When you start a revenue-generating business, you’re locked into a power purchase agreement, typically for 20 years, sometimes even longer,” the CEO said. “You’re going to earn revenue for the next 20 years and then grow from there.”
