Oklo planning pilot scale production facility for its Aurora power plant
A nuclear fission start-up backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman is to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) in a deal that values the business at $850m (€770m).
Oklo, where Altman serves as board chair, has agreed a transaction with AltC Acquisition Corporation, a blank-cheque company set up by Altman and former Citigroup executive Michael Klein.
The deal is expected to provide the California-based group with $500m. The capital that Oklo raises by going public will go towards ramping up its supply chain and procurement processes and building a pilot scale production facility for its reactor, which it calls Aurora.
Spacs, or blank-cheque companies, raise money on the stock market and use the cash to invest in a private company, thereby taking it public.
Altman best known for his work with artificial intelligence (AI) after Microsoft invested billions of dollars in OpenAI and the company’s ChatGPT chatbot caught the public’s imagination late last year.
“I’m all-in on energy. I think there’s urgent demand for tons and tons of cheap, safe, clean energy at scale,” Altman told CNBC recently.
Altman believes nuclear energy as necessary to meet demand while moving away from burning fossil fuels, which cause global warming. “I don’t see a way for us to get there without nuclear. I mean, maybe we could get there just with solar and storage,” Altman told CNBC. “But from my vantage point, I feel like this is the most likely and the best way to get there.”
Oklo is working to commercialise nuclear fission, but Altman has also invested $375m into Helion, which is one of a burgeoning industry of startups working to prove out and commercialise nuclear fusion.
Oklo is developing next-generation fission reactors starting with the Aurora, which consists of a small fission reactor with integrated solar panels. Aurora can produce up to 15 MW of power and operate for 10 years or longer before refuelling.
In January 2022, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo’s combined licence application for a project to build and operate a plant at Idaho National Laboratory on the grounds that the company had failed to provide information on several key topics for the Aurora design. Oklo restarted its licensing process for the project in September 2022.
In May, Oklo said it had signed an agreement deploy plants in Ohio that will provide up to 30 MW of electric power and over 50 MW of heating, with opportunities to expand.
Sam Altman receving an award from former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Altman says he is ‘all-in on energy’. Courtesy Office of Nancy Pelosi.
