The regulatory process is described here: https://oklo.com/regulatory-maturity/default.aspx
The spirit of the question is, did the US government sign off on a specific reactor design from Oklo. For the moment the 'combined license' seems closest to this idea - not necessarily a permit for a specific site, but regulatory signoff on the reactor design and concept. Will still resolve YES even if the reactor design changes, or the company changes hands.
Oklo recently filed to go public via a SPAC with a blank check company owned by Sam Altman, ALCC.
1,000
3.00so the passive safety concept is that thermal expansion of fuel reduces reactivity. But this also applies to every other reactor ever and is a much weaker negative feedback mechanism than the neutron temperature and Doppler broadening of resonances in thermal neutron reactors. Fast reactors are harder to control than thermal reactors but you do get a smaller footprint and higher fuel burnup as compensation. I’m not sure they can make a fast reactor passively safe using only thermal expansion of the fuel for negative feedback. If they fine tuned it to be delayed critical below 500C or whatever with no control rods then you’re not getting any of the high-burnup advantage of a fast reactor. Also with varied waste as fuel it would be hard to fine tune
I love the link in the description where right in front the company says:
"Oklo made history with the development of the first advanced fission combined license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)"
even though the most recent item on the NRC page is:
"OKLO INC. - Denial of the Aurora Combined Operating License Application for Failure to Supply Information"
That was January of 2022! I really want to see more nuclear built, but after reading the "white papers" they have submitted to the NRC I've come to the conclusion that this isn't a serious company.
@BernieB Sure, I think there’s also a sense the NRC is an unreasonable agency and also efforts to get them to relax their approval standards
The most recent NRC information here looks really bad: Application Documents | NRC.gov
This is the first paragraph, but the whole thing is bad:
"The purpose of this letter is to inform Oklo Inc. (Oklo) of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff’s decision to deny the custom combined license application for the Aurora micro-reactor pursuant to the requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 2, “Agency Rules of Practice and Procedure,” Section 2.108, “Denial of application for failure to supply information.” Because Oklo has provided insufficient information, as discussed below, for the NRC staff to establish a schedule to review key safety and design aspects of Aurora, the agency is ending its custom combined license application review and denying the application without prejudice. Oklo is free to resubmit its application supplemented by additional information in the areas described below."