"So that means we get to buy into an already established, effectively economy of scale production supply chain.Workers walk past the covered exploded reactor inside a shelter construction at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Chernobyl, Ukraine, April 15, 2021. "We made intentional design decisions to build on demonstrated technology that also uses parts, major parts and components that are used in other industries," DeWitte told CNBC. Some of that is the reactor's smaller size, but some of it is how the Oklo reactors have been designed. "One of the things that I'm so excited about the Oklo design is that I think the economics can be very, very different," Altman said. If Oklo does make it past the regulatory process, it has the potential to make nuclear energy much more affordable than it is now, which is part of what makes Altman interested. "In many ways, a lot of the licensing details around this are focused more on what I call structural and kind of procedural elements." "We've made a lot of progress with the NRC dating back to 2016," DeWitte told CNBC. The NRC cited information gaps in the application, but Oklo is confident that it will be able to resolve the issue. 2022, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is the nation's top nuclear regulatory agency, denied its first application to build and operate its advanced nuclear reactor. The company has also begun the process of applying for necessary approvals to construct a fuel-recycling facility so that Oklo can put what would otherwise be considered "used" fuel into its advanced reactor design.īut Oklo has also faced some setbacks: In Jan. For that reactor, Oklo has already gotten approval from INL to use some of its spent nuclear fuel.
Department of Energy to build a plant at the Idaho National Laboratory by 2027. Oklo also has received approvals from the U.S. In May, Oklo signed an agreement with the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative to deploy two commercial plants in Southern Ohio, and it's aiming to have them online by 2030. Oklo is still in the relatively early stages. There's no lack of desire or need for this," Altman told CNBC.Īlso, Oklo plans to operate the reactors itself and sell the power to customers, making it easier for customers to use nuclear energy without having to take on the responsibility of operating a nuclear reactor. "Oklo has extremely strong customer interest.
Oklo power reactors will produce consistent levels of energy, as opposed to the intermittent sources of power generated by wind and solar, and Oklo is positioning itself to be a source of power for data centers, utilities, defense facilities, remote communities, factories, and industrial sites. Oklo plans to make much smaller nuclear reactors that can operate with fresh or recycled fuel for as long as a decade before they need to be refueled. The Vogtle plant in Georgia are the latest of this kind of conventional nuclear reactor to be constructed in the U.S., and its budget and schedule overruns have become infamous. Conventional nuclear reactors are expensive construction projects that take a long time. Oklo was founded in 2013 with the vision to re-imagine commercial nuclear energy.
Also, because Oklo reactors are going to be much smaller than Helion power plants, they will likely serve different kinds of customers.įundamentally, "the world is just so energy limited, and it's such an energy deficit, we need all of it," Altman told CNBC.
The need for clean, cheap energy "is so vast" that having multiple source of reliable, clean nuclear energy is a good thing, Altman says. He's also invested $375 million into Helion, which is one of a burgeoning industry of startups working to prove out and commercialize nuclear fusion, which is the way the sun generates energy and creates no long-lived nuclear waste, but has never been replicated and scaled on earth.Īltman says fusion, if it can be commercialized as Helion envisions, and Oklo, with its smaller, cheaper nuclear reactors, can co-exist. Oklo is working to commercialize nuclear fission, which is the reaction that powers all of existing nuclear power plants, but using much smaller reactors. "But from my vantage point, I feel like this is the most likely and the best way to get there."Īltman is betting on slightly different nuclear projects. I mean, maybe we could get there just with solar and storage," Altman told CNBC. "I don't see a way for us to get there without nuclear. In particular, Altman believes nuclear energy as necessary to meet demand while moving away from burning fossil fuels, which cause global warming. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
0 kommentar(er)
