Oklo Inc.

Oklo Inc.
Company typePublic
IndustryNuclear Energy
Founded2013; 11 years ago (2013)
Founders
    • Jacob DeWitte
    • Caroline Cochran
Headquarters
Santa Clara, California, U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Products
  • Aurora Powerhouse Reactor
Number of employees
100 (2024)
Websiteoklo.com

Oklo Inc. is a nuclear technology company based in Santa Clara, California.[1][2] Founded in 2013 by Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, both graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the company designs compact fast reactors with the aim of providing clean, safe, and affordable energy. Its chairman is OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.[3]

The company’s name is derived from Oklo, a region in the country of Gabon, Africa where self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions occurred approximately 1.7 billion years ago.[4]

Oklo's business model is focused on selling power to customers, and its main product line for producing power is the Aurora nuclear reactor powerhouse product line. The Aurora powerhouse is a small power plant designed to generate 15-50 MWe of electrical power via a Siemens or similar power generation system and utilizing a compact fast neutron reactor to produce heat. There are over 400 years of combined fast reactor operational history, including demonstration of incredible safety benefits. The Aurora is intended for off-grid applications, including data centers, artificial intelligence, remote communities, industrial sites, and military bases. It can operate for up to 10 years without refueling. Oklo has signed letters of intent with Diamondback Energy and Wyoming Hyperscale to provide emission-free electricity with its fission reactors for Diamondback’s Permian Basin operations and Wyoming Hyperscale’s data center campus, respectively, over 20-year periods. [5] [6]

Oklo intends to produce radioisotopes through its nuclear fuel recycling process and fast reactor technology.[7] These radioisotopes have a wide range of applications, including medical diagnostic imaging and cancer treatment; industrial uses like non-destructive testing and process control; and energy applications including radioisotope thermoelectric generators, nuclear batteries and fusion research.[8][9][10]

As a liquid metal cooled fast reactor, the Aurora powerhouse possesses a number of advantages in terms of its operation and safety profile. The Aurora has strongly negative reactivity feedback coefficients which emerge from the system’s physics. These inherent feedback mechanisms act to reduce reactor power in response to temperature excursions without any operator intervention or active safety systems. This was demonstrated in the Shutdown Heat Removal Test series at Experimental Breeder Reactor-II,[11] a sodium fast reactor operated between 1964 and 1994 that Oklo credits as inspiring much of the design of the Aurora powerhouse. Oklo's application for a combined construction and operating license for the Aurora powerhouse was denied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on January 6th, 2022.[12] The NRC cited a lack of information provided by Oklo during the application process and that Oklo could re-submit in the future.

The company has received venture capital from various investors, including Hydrazine Capital, founded by Sam Altman with Peter Thiel as its sole limited partner; Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz; Ron Conway of SV Angels; Kevin Efrusy of Accel Partners; and Tim Draper of Draper Associates.[13]

In July 2023, it was announced that the company planned to go public via a special purpose acquisition company at a value of $850 million.[14] On May 10, 2024, Oklo merged with AltC Acquisition Corp, receiving $306 millions in gross proceeds.[3]

  1. ^ Confino, Paolo (July 11, 2023). "Sam Altman just took a nuclear energy startup public for $500 million. Its CEO wants to provide 'energy at planetary scales for a billion-plus years'". Fortune.
  2. ^ Patel, Sonal (May 18, 2023). "Oklo's Next Two Nuclear Power Plants Planned for Southern Ohio". Power.
  3. ^ a b Sigalos, Hayden; Field, MacKenzie (2024-05-10). "Sam Altman's nuclear energy company Oklo plunges 54% in NYSE debut". CNBC. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  4. ^ Judge, Peter. "Sam Altman-backed nuclear reactor firm Oklo to go public via SPAC". Data Centre Dynamics.
  5. ^ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-01/us-shale-drillers-seek-to-power-oil-patch-with-small-nukes
  6. ^ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-24/altman-backed-oklo-sees-rising-nuke-demand-from-data-centers</ref
  7. ^ https://www.ans.org/news/article-6041/oklo-to-collaborate-with-atomic-alchemy-on-isotope-production/
  8. ^ https://www.britannica.com/story/how-radioactive-isotopes-are-used-in-medicine
  9. ^ https://www.nde-ed.org/NDETechniques/Radiography/radiationsources.xhtml
  10. ^ https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-radioactive-products-we-use-every-day
  11. ^ Planchon, H. P.; Singer, R. M.; Mohr, D.; Feldman, E. E.; Chang, L. K.; Betten, P. R. (1985-01-01). EBR-II inherent shutdown and heat removal tests: a survey of test results (Report). Argonne National Lab., IL (USA).
  12. ^ https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2022/22-002.pdf
  13. ^ LASSITER, JOSEPH B. (2017). "UPower Technologies Inc. Case # 9-816-054". Harvard Business School.
  14. ^ "Nuclear power Spac: Sam Altman, AI king, seeks to split atoms". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2024-05-11.