Oklo breaks ground at INL on Aurora reactor
Following the same milestones from Aalo Atomics and Valar Atomics, Santa Clara, Calif.–based reactor start-up Oklo has become the third company participating in the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program to break ground on its fast-tracked project at Idaho National Laboratory.
While Aalo and Oklo now share INL as the home of their DOE projects, a few things set Oklo apart from its program peers. For one, it was founded in 2013, giving it a more than a decadelong head start on Aalo and Valar, both of which were founded in 2023. The company is also the only of the three that is traded publicly.
Even more notably, Oklo holds a unique position in the pilot program: while every other company only has one project selected for acceleration, Oklo has three.
INL project: On September 22, Oklo announced that it broke ground on Aurora-INL. This will be the company’s first deployment of its flagship reactor, the Aurora Powerhouse, a 75-MWe liquid metal–cooled, metal-fueled fast reactor. According to the company, the reactor “builds on the design and operating heritage of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II,” a 20-MWe breeder reactor power plant that ran at INL (which was then called Argonne West) from 1964 to 1969.
In July, when Oklo selected Kiewit Nuclear Solutions as the lead constructor for the project, the company projected entering commercial operation in late 2027 or early 2028. With newfound DOE fast-tracking, Oklo may be aiming to accelerate that start date (potentially all the way to the July 2026 deadline ascribed by the DOE), though the company has not provided an updated timeline.
This ground-breaking represents a massive leap forward in what has been a long and at times fraught project runaway. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Oklo first entered preapplication discussions in 2016 for a 1.5 MW version of the Aurora to be deployed at INL. The eventual license application for that project was denied by the NRC in 2022. This reenvisioned reactor is significantly scaled up in size from Oklo’s original Aurora design.
Like all pilot program projects, Aurora-INL will progress through DOE authorization rather than the standard NRC framework. An Oklo spokesperson told Power Magazine that the company will “continue coordination with the NRC throughout the process.” In an email to Nuclear News, an Oklo spokesperson declined to comment on what the nature of that coordination will be.
Oklo is currently in the process of receiving DOE authorization to fabricate its initial core for the Aurora-INL at its Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is also at INL. It plans to source five metric tons of HALEU from the EBR-II reactor.
The ground-breaking ceremony featured an impressive lineup of speakers, including Idaho and Utah Govs. Bradley Little and Spencer Cox, Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch, Rep. Mike Simpson, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, NRC commissioner Bradley Crowell, and the DOE’s Michael Goff and Robert Boston.
Other projects: The second Oklo project in the pilot program falls under the jurisdiction of its subsidiary Atomic Alchemy, which Oklo acquired in 2024. Official confirmation of the acceleration of Atomic Alchemy’s project has yet to be released. However, the company began site characterization work at INL in June for its 15-MWt light water Versatile Isotope Production Reactor (VIPR). This project’s progress and location make it a likely candidate for having been fast-tracked. Atomic Alchemy hopes to use the VIPR to supply isotopes to the medical, space, defense, and industrial sectors.
The last project remains a larger question mark at this time. There is no publicly available information about it, and Oklo declined to comment when Nuclear News asked for information.
The only other significant reactor project that Oklo is currently pursuing in collaboration with the federal government (as far as the public knows) is through the U.S. Department of the Air Force. In June, the USAF issued a notice of intent to award the company with a contract to pilot a microreactor at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. This project is under a separate Department of Defense microreactor pilot program.
In a July funding opportunity announcement Q&A from the DOE, an unknown applicant asked whether or not a project progressing under DOD authorization, on DOD property could be simultaneously fast-tracked by the DOE. The DOE responded that it saw no issues with that plan, and added, “The DOE will accelerate whatever we can, rely on what DOD has already done and try to accelerate this process . . . . Instead of going to DOD, and then to DOE, they can just apply for this pathway and then we can figure out how to consolidate and authorize.”
While this statement does not conclusively confirm that the Eielson project has also been selected for the DOE’s pilot program, it does indicate DOE’s willingness to participate in joint DOE-DOD reactor authorization projects.
