Oklo Breaks Ground on Aurora SMR at Idaho National Laboratory
Advanced nuclear reactor startup Oklo has broken ground on the construction to build its Aurora Powerhouse on land within the Idaho National Laboratory.
Oklo is one of the 10 advanced reactor firms chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to be a part of its Reactor Pilot Program. The DOE pilot seeks to fast-track small modular reactor (SMR) development, pushing the projects to reach criticality by next July 4.
Aurora-INL is one of the three projects awarded to Oklo under the program, with two awarded directly to Oklo and one awarded to its subsidiary, Atomic Alchemy.
“Oklo Inc.'s Aurora powerhouse will deliver clean, affordable, and reliable American energy to power a new generation of intelligence manufacturing across the country,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, in a statement. “As advancements in artificial intelligence drive up electricity demands, projects like this are critical to ensuring the United States can meet that need and remain at the forefront of the global AI arms race.”
Kietwit Corp.’s Nuclear Solutions subsidiary is the lead design, procurement and construction contractor on the Aurora Powerhouse project at the KNL. The Aurora is a planned sodium-cooled fast reactor which will use metal fuel. Its design builds on the Experimental Breeder Reactor II site which was operated in Idaho for 30 years until 1994.
TIME magazine named Oklo's Aurora Powerhouse as one of its 100 Best Inventions of 2023.
Other SMR nuclear firms selected for the DOE pilot include Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear Inc., Atomic Alchemy Inc., Deep Fission Inc., Last Energy Inc., Natura Resources LLC, Radiant Industries Inc., Terrestrial Energy Inc., and Valar Atomics Inc.
Those selected firms are encouraged and empowered to seek private funding critical to research and development of next-generation reactor technologies. The DOE pathway also helps streamline regulatory processes normally held under the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which takes multiple years to complete.
No SMRs have yet been built or commissioned in the U.S., although some projects are also advancing in other nations such as Canada, Russia and China. Several U.S. SMR applications are progressing toward construction and design approvals by the NRC, but the new DOE program seeks to speed that process up.
Many power sector leaders say that expanded nuclear capacity will help meet future data center and AI load while also decarbonizing the grid.
About the Author
EnergyTech Staff
Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.
Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
He can be reached at [email protected].
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.