Would you like to visit your local nuclear power facility and perhaps swim in their indoor pool? Or can you just hang out and look at the art…or just sit with friends and enjoy a cup of coffee under the warm glow of nuclear power?
Backed by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and creators of ChatGPT, Oklo Inc. (a company that recycles nuclear fuel and uses it in its small nuclear fission reactor called Aurora) said it would be possible. Not only is it possible, but it is within Oklo's plans.
Because Aurora is designed specifically for remote areas, Oklo envisions the reactor site serving as a community center. Places where winters are long and bitter often take a toll on residents' mental health. Oklo sees adding this type of comfortable social space as another plus.
For those of us who lived during the 1980s and 1990s, the thought of swimming in an indoor pool at the local nuclear power plant probably gives us mental images of Homer Simpson eating bright green donuts. Oklo assures us that it is completely safe. Not only would it be safe, but the small reactor would produce almost zero greenhouse gas emissions and produce no nuclear waste. By using recycled nuclear fuel, the amount of nuclear waste present is actually reduced.
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The small reactor was designed with a sort of “fire and forget” ideology for the most part. It is called a “microreactor” not only because of its small size, but also because of its small power of 1.5 megawatts, enough to power about 1,000 homes under ideal conditions. It differs from the small module reactor (SMR), which is designed to produce approximately 50 to 125 MW. Conventional nuclear reactors can produce at least 500 megawatts, while the gigantic Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan produces 8,200 megawatts (8.2 gigawatts).
The Aurora microreactor has passive safety features and a sealed core. It has no moving parts and can cool itself without human intervention. It is designed to operate continuously for up to 20 years before needing refueling. Instead of using a pair of tweezers to pull out a glowing green rod (again, like Homer Simpson), you simply remove the entire core and replace it with the next batch of recycled nuclear fuel.
Aurora uses highly enriched uranium (HALEU) with 5-20% uranium-235 in a somewhat unique fast reactor design, that is, it uses high-energy neutrons to sustain the nuclear chain reaction. Conventional nuclear reactors use a moderator (usually water) to slow down neutrons and make chain reactions more manageable, stable and higher probability, since they use a much lower enrichment of 3 to 5% uranium-235.
Heat is a byproduct of nuclear fission. Aurora is equipped with waste heat utilization components to maximize its efficiency by up to 90% overall. Heat exchangers can transfer heat to secondary systems where it can be applied to other practical uses, such as heating nearby buildings, the desalination process to convert seawater to fresh water, grazing and greenhouses. Or industrial applications such as chemical manufacturing or materials production. The list goes on.
Aurora is located in a very unconventional “nuclear” building. There are no huge cooling towers often associated with nuclear power plants. Instead, it's a simple A-frame building the size of a small house that looks more like a luxurious miniature downhill ski lodge. Solar panels on the roof help power the facility's non-nuclear systems, such as control panels and monitoring systems, making the site almost completely self-sufficient.
This is Oklo's goal: to be deployed in remote areas where conventional nuclear reactors are impractical or impossible; Isolated and remote communities, military installations and research sites.
Idaho National Laboratory
Its inaugural deployment is planned for the Idaho National Laboratory (IDL), near Idaho Falls. In 2020, IDL announced that it would provide Oklo with access to five tonnes of spent nuclear fuel recovered from the EBR-II reactor for the development and demonstration of the Aurora small reactor. The halyu extracted from EBR-II will go through a molten salt bath and electrolysis to be cleaned before being mixed with low-enriched uranium (LEU) and molded into small circular ingots.
The U.S. Department of Energy just greenlit Oklo's conceptual design for a fuel manufacturing facility in Aurora, and Oklo plans to bring its first commercial power plant online in Aurora by 2027.
Currently, there are no microreactors deployed in real-world applications, although other ventures, such as the Westinghouse eVinci microreactor, are poised to become widespread in the coming years as well.
