The Aurora powerhouse is an advanced fission plant concept design that received a site use permit for testing in 2020 from the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

(DOE). The site use permit, issued in December 2019 is not a

Nuclear Regulatory Commission The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with protecting public health and safety related to nuclear energy. Established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the ...

permit. It will use "recycled" high-assay,

low-enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...

(HALEU) fuel originally fabricated for the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), and if fully operational, would become "the first fuel-recycling commercial reactor in the United States". The DOE's

Idaho National Laboratory Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the labora ...

(INL) said it would provide 10 tons of HALEU for the test reactor which corresponds to most of the available supply. Reprocessing would occur at INL's Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) and possibly also the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC), neither of which are operational facilities as of early 2020. The reactor design is a

fast-neutron reactor A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV, on average), as opposed to slow t ...

with heat pipe cooling similar to the NASA Kilopower reactor. According to the designers, the reactor will have a "large negative temperature reactivity coefficient", lacks pumps and valves, uses heat pipes for heat removal, has no nuclear refueling intervals and associated core exposure, and its core is buried underground. In presenting its safety design to the

, Oklo quoted a study of the EBR-II, which is a different reactor technology, as being "inherently protected without requiring emergency power, safety systems, or operator intervention". The Aurora is being developed by Oklo Inc. Oklo Inc was founded in 2014, with investors including Hydrazine Capital (founded by

Sam Altman Samuel Harris Altman (born April 22, 1985) is an American technology entrepreneur, investor, and the chief executive officer of OpenAI since 2019 (he was Removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI, briefly dismissed and reinstated in November 2023). He ...

, with

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According ...

as its sole limited partner); Facebook's co-founder,

Dustin Moskovitz Dustin Aaron Moskovitz (; born May 22, 1984) is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. (now known as Meta Platforms) with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. In 2008, he left F ...

; Ron Conway of SV Angels; Kevin Efrusy, a technology investor at Accel Partners;

Daniel Aegerter Daniel Simon Aegerter (born July 20, 1969) is a Swiss businessman and venture capitalist. Formerly founder and CEO of Tradex Technologies, he later founded Armada Investment AG to manage his wealth. He was an early investor in Nutmeg (company), ...

, a Swiss investor and entrepreneur,

Tim Draper Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),

of Draper Associates,

Crunchfund J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970) is the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in America and elsewhere. Magazines such as ...

, and several smaller investors including early employees of Google and Yahoo. On January 6, 2022, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo's combined license application due to lack of information regarding several key topics for the Aurora reactor.

References

Further reading