Part 1 of 2 Parts
     Oklo is a California-based company. It plans to construct two small-scale nuclear power reators near Piketon, Ohio that will operate under a new model compared to traditional nuclear power plants. If these reactors are actually built, they would be the first commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. to use the new process. The first phase of the project is obtaining a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the agency that oversees the nation’s nuclear industry. The reactors in Ohio would be the second and third built by Oklo. The company has plans to construct its first reactor in Idaho. Oklo calls its new reactor design “Aurora”.
     Oklo submitted a license application to the NRC for the Idaho reactor in March 2020. The NRC denied that license application in January of 2022. It said that Oklo had not provided enough information to do a full safety assessment of the proposed reactor.
      Andrea Veil is the director of the commission’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. He said, “Oklo’s application continues to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components.” This information was disseminated via a press release about the NRC decision.
     Since the January 2022 decision, the NRC and Oklo have been engaged in a pre-application process to lay the groundwork for a new license application. This licensing process involves a different reactor design than the one first proposed for the Idaho site, according to Scott Burnell who is a public affairs officer for the NRC.
     Bonita Chester is Oklo’s director of communications. She said, “We’ve been actively engaged with the NRC in closing out the open areas for which they wanted more information. These can generally be considered areas where the advanced nature of the technology, and its differences from current reactors, can cause deviations in style and format of what the regulator is used to, so we have focused on bridging that and communicating those accordingly.”
     The two reactors being proposed by Oklo for southeast Ohio will be the same design as the one that it plans to build in Idaho. Oklo intends to submit a new application for the Idaho reactor within the next twelve months. An application for the Ohio plants will be submitted by 2025.
     The Ohio reactors will be constructed on the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). For decades, uranium was enriched at the PGDP for use in commercial nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. The site consists of thousands of acres about two miles south of Piketon. These decades of operation left large sections of the site significantly contaminated with radioactive and other hazardous wastes. This contamination includes buildings, soil and groundwater.
    An extensive cleanup operation has been underway for years. It will continue for at least another decade. This projection was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), which is overseeing the remediation. In the meantime, local economic development officials are trying to find businesses interested in developing portions of the site that are not contaminated.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 92 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 120 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 125 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

     Some investors are betting on Rolls-Royce (RR) stock rising because RR is entering the small modular reactors (SMR) market. SMRs will be manufactured in a factory and assembled at the site where they will operate. One of the selling points for SMRs is the expectation that they will be cheaper and quicker to construct than conventional nuclear power plants. Large-scale nuclear projects are notorious for running over budget and behind schedule.
     SMR technology has already been proven in Russia. In 2020, a floating power station was commissioned. The result was the Akademik Lomonosov barge which now provides power for two hundred thousand homes in the Russian city of Vilyuchinsk. Nuclear reactors usually used in nuclear icebreakers were used to construct the floating power plant.
     RR is designing SMRs with a four hundred and seventy megawatt capacity. Each one will be able to provide electricity to one million households.
     There are currently thirty-two countries that make use of nuclear power. However, SMRs will open up new markets in countries that have not used nuclear technology because of their relative simplicity and sixty year projected life spans. Many are expected to be located on existing sites of redundant coal or gas-fired power plants. The market for SMRs is projected to be worth more than thirty billion dollars a year by 2040.
     The U.K., U.S. and Canada are leading players in the development of these small nuclear reactors. The U.K. government is so interested that it has given RR two hundred and sixty million dollars. Four sites have been chosen where it is hoped that fifteen gigawatts of capacity will be installed. RR has signed memoranda of understanding with the Czech Republic, Estonia and Turkey for SMR projects.
      Not everyone is enthusiastic about more nuclear power. Greenpeace does not support nuclear power due to the long-lasting problems of dealing with spent nuclear fuel waste. High profile nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima are reminders of how badly things can go wrong when nuclear technology fails.
     Last month, Germany shut down its last operational nuclear power plant. The German government has decided to invest in renewable energy instead. However, at the same time, Finland opened Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. It is expected that about forty percent of the electricity in Finland will soon be produced by nuclear power.
     The most recent survey by YouGov suggested that nuclear power is becoming more popular. In September of last year, forty-eight of the those polled said that they supported the use of nuclear power in the U.K. In August of 2019, a similar poll found that only forty percent of the respondents supported nuclear power.
     From an investment point of view in the U.S., SMRs are receiving the backing of two American billionaires. TerraPower is being funded by Bill Gates. In collaboration with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, TerraPower has created the Natrium reactor. These are intended to provide constant power. They will compensate for when weather conditions for wind and solar farms are unfavorable.    Warren Buffet, through Berkshire Hathaway, owns PacifiCorp which is partnering with TerraPower in a feasibility study for a site in Wyoming.
      RR is not expected to have its first operation SMR until 2030.

Ambient office = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 93 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 71 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 95 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 96 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 143 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 82 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 95 nanosieverts per hour