Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Oklo’s proposed thirteen thousand-square-foot Aurora powerhouse, featuring a fifteen-megawatt fission reactor, is smaller than conventional nuclear power plants and looks more like a sleek ski chalet than the Cold War-era plants with their iconic curved towers. The plant is going to be built at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) which is a research facility where Oklo has been given an Energy Department grant to test recycling nuclear waste into new fuel. DeWitte says the design is safer that conventional power reactors, citing the use of liquid metal as a coolant instead of water.
     The nuclear power industry hasn’t significantly expanded its share of the U.S. energy mix for decades. It has limped along in the face of popular opposition fueled by infrequent but devastating accidents like those in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. Even the newest nuclear plants still generate waste that can remain dangerously radioactive for centuries. This raises the need for effective disposal or recycling efforts like the one Oklo is testing.
     As the climate crisis accelerates, fifty seven percent of Americans now support expanding nuclear energy according to a Pew Research survey last year. Nuclear power currently makes up only nineteen percent of the nation’s overall energy generation in the U.S. There are ninety-three commercial nuclear power reactors operating today in the U.S. This is down from a peak of one hundred and twelve in 1990. By one estimate, up to eight hundred gigawatts of new nuclear generated electricity will be needed by 2050 to meet current green energy targets.
     But as tech firms embrace AI, many data centers are already struggling to add capacity fast enough to remain affordable, with data center rents jumping nearly sixteen percent between 2022 and 2023 alone. The demand crunch is one reason major industry players have been increasing their nuclear investments.
     Microsoft signed a deal last summer with Constellation, a top nuclear power plant operator, to supply nuclear-generated electricity to its Virginia data centers. In 2022, Google took part in a two hundred and fifty-million-dollar fundraising round for the fusion startup TAE Technologies. In late 2021, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other investors raised over one hundred and thirty million dollars for Canadian nuclear company General Fusion.
     Ross Matzkin-Bridger is a senior director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit group focused on reducing nuclear and biological risks. He said that for tech firms, it makes sense to tap directly into nuclear plants “instead of sourcing electricity from the grid.” In addition to being clean, he mentioned that many recent nuclear projects are also compact. “You can fit a lot more energy per acre in nuclear energy than you can with any other technology.” he said.
     Ayan Paul is a research scientist at Northeastern University who studies AI. He said that beyond Silicon Valley, “big investment firms are actually starting to believe that this is going to take off. People have started to believe that these kinds of energies are going to fuel our population.”
     However, some experts warn that efforts to expand nuclear power shouldn’t be rushed, no matter how fast demand is growing.
     Ahmed Abdulla is an assistant mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Carleton University. He said, “We need nuclear power to get to a low-carbon future.” However, for engineering projects that have historically taken decades, the regulatory process needs to be a methodical one. He added that “There is a chance to make serious mistakes if we sprint to the goal.”