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Sam Altman-backed nuclear start-up crashes after Wall Street debut

NEW YORK,  https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2024/05/11/sam-altman-backed-nuclear-start-up-crashes-after-wall-street-debut/133694 ― The share price of nuclear energy start-up Oklo, chaired by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, fell sharply yesterday on its first day of trading on Wall Street.

At around 3.40pm (1940GMT), the stock was down 53.9 per cent to US$8.40 (RM39.80).

Founded in 2013 by graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Oklo went public by merging with AltC Acquisition Corp, a listed company.

The latter is a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), a company whose sole purpose is to enable another firm to enter Wall Street through a merger.

Since the deal with Oklo was announced in July last year, AltC’s share price has soared, gaining over 72 per cent.

But transactions involving a SPAC are often highly volatile, partly because they are more exposed to speculation than traditional IPOs.

Altman is involved in several cutting-edge sectors and invested in Oklo in 2015, also becoming its chairman.

According to company documents, Altman directly controls around three per cent of the capital.

Oklo plans to build small modular reactors (SMRs), which are theoretically quicker to build than conventional power plants and less complicated to construct in remote areas. Oklo also wants to offer nuclear fuel recycling.

Conventional nuclear reactors are hugely expensive and take a long time to construct, with major projects having become notorious for their budget and schedule overruns.

The startup does not yet have a site of its own, and in January 2022 was refused a licence to build an SMR in Idaho by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC).

The NRC rejected the application on the grounds that there was a lack of information on the risks of accidents and the responses planned in such cases.

With the merger with AltC, Oklo raised US$306 million, which will be used to build the company’s first fission reactor, Aurora, in Ohio. ― AFP

May 15, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

“Nuclear comes last”

the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”

Banks reject nuclear funding, stocks nosedive and the industry says it should, believe it or not, slow down

 By Linda Pentz Gunter     https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/31/nuclear-comes-last/

NuScale, the company whose small modular reactor project collapsed so spectacularly last November, is “burning cash at the rate of $185 million per year”. On March 22, the company’s CEO, John Hopkins, sold 59,768 of his shares in the company. This is the same CEO who declared NuScale’s SMR project, aptly named VOYGR, “a dead horse.” It’s clearly on a journey to nowhere.

Wells Fargo, with an eye on prudent investments, has declared, “We think investor enthusiasm for SMR is misguided”. As The Motley Fool reported, “NuScale’s VOYGR nuclear power product has ‘no secure customers’ and is ‘not cost competitive’ says the analyst.” 

The splashy cheerleading Nuclear Energy Summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Brussels on March 21 proved to be just that. The participants arrived floating on the hot air of their misplaced enthusiasm but “left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions”.

European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros, told Summit attendees to their face that “The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high”. Representatives from the European and Latin American banking worlds said that “their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids” and that “nuclear comes last”.

Even the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission couldn’t quite bring itself to slam down its rubber stamp on Oklo’s chalet-in-the-woods micro reactor, the Aurora, which remains about as real as its namesake fairy tale princess. 

In January 2022, the NRC denied Oklo’s license application outright because it “continues to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components,” wrote the NRC. 

Oklo reapplied nine months later but according to the NRC docket there is “no further action”. 

Nevertheless, Oklo brags on its website that it “made history” simply by developing “the first advanced fission combined license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission”, which sums up the second nuclear “renaissance” perfectly: Make a drawing. Hit ‘send’.

Meanwhile, the US military canceled its contract for an Aurora reactor originally intended for the Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska.

And finally, an executive from the industry that has consistently delivered its latest new reactors decades late and billions over the original budget — in one case $20 billion over — suggested they should all just slow down. Said Ian Edwards, chief executive of Canadian reactor producer, Atkins Realis, “we all become too optimistic. We have this optimism bias towards being able to deliver faster. Really we should probably slow things down a little bit.”

But nuclear power is the answer to our current climate crisis! Ya think?

It’s tempting to ask whether things can get any worse for the nuclear power industry, but they almost certainly will. Unless we end up paying for it all. As the Bloomberg article that related the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”

At the moment, a majority in the US Congress seem intent on making sure that is exactly what will happen. Because after all, why should multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, be forced to pay for his own nuclear toys when he can milk (read ‘bilk’) US taxpayers instead?

The US government has already pledged $2 billion of our money to Gates for his proliferation-friendly liquid sodium-cooled molten salt fast reactor produced by his company, TerraPower (more properly, TerrorPower). Gates can’t wait to export it the United Arab Emirates. Nuclear weapons anyone?

The strokey-white-beard-named ADVANCE Act, has been passed by the US House with 365 voting in favor and only 36 Democrats-with-a-conscience voting against it. By its own description, the ADVANCE ACT aims to “advance the benefits of nuclear energy by enabling efficient, timely, and predictable licensing, regulation, and deployment of nuclear energy technologies.” In other words, do away with burdensome — and expensive — safety regulations. 

Indeed, New Mexico Democrat, Senator Martin Heinrich, told E&E News in January that “These regulatory timelines do not lend themselves to fighting the climate crisis.” Oh those wascally wegulations!

Meanwhile, Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia doesn’t want to seat any new NRC commissioners who might be “too focused on safety.” 

The NRC’s motto is “protecting people and the environment,” a mandate it demonstrably endeavors to avoid already, but even some vestige of interest in safety is probably better than none. Not that safety oversight will be needed of course because, hey, SMRs are “walkaway safe” and “meltdown proof” and any new light water reactors are too “advanced” to be a safety risk.

This makes the insistence by SMR manufacturers that they must be covered by the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) all the more curious. Price-Anderson, due to expire in 2025, was culled out of the ADVANCE ACT, now moving out of Senate committee and working its way through the reconciliation process, and handled separately. The Senate adopted the House version of the PAA, giving it a 40-year extension to 2026, and expanded limited liability for a major accident to just over $16 billion per reactor.

President Biden duly signed it into law, marking another misstep on what is becoming an increasingly problematic presidency.

Ed Lyman, Nuclear Power Safety Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Nuclear Intelligence Weekly that “The nuclear industry’s push for a 40-year Price-Anderson Act extension is a sure sign that it doesn’t believe its own messaging about how safe the next generation of nuclear reactors is going to be.”

But in a joint statement, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) declared that “The extension of the Price-Anderson Act in the minibus sends a clear message that we are committed to the advancement of this safe and reliable power source.”

The “clear message” this actually sends is that, in the event of a major nuclear accident, US taxpayers will be thrown under that minibus. The $16 billion coverage will be chicken feed and we will all be stuck with the bill. Let’s remember that the Chornobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters are each racking up costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars and counting. We have been warned.

But a bi-partisan group of Representatives and Senators think it’s perfectly fine for all of us to pay for such an eventuality. Meanwhile, if you own a home and are forced to abandon it in the path of a nuclear accident, you cannot claim a dime off your homeowner’s insurance. It will just be a total loss. Think about that for a moment.

Are we outraged yet?

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear 

May 15, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Reference archives | Leave a comment

Nuclear Weapons at Any Price? Congress Should Say No

Costs are skyrocketing to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Instead of turning a blind eye, Congress should demand fiscal oversight and make hard decisions balancing costs with deterrence

BY SHARON K. WEINER, 13 May 24,  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-weapons-at-any-price-congress-should-say-no/

Bipartisanship seems rare in Congress these days. But one place to consistently find agreement between Democrats and Republicans is support for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal—currently numbering almost 5,000 nuclear warheads, plus the triad of missiles, submarines and bombers to deliver them. Unfortunately, that consensus also seems to extend to turning a blind eye to the exploding costs, which helps explain why the original $1 trillion modernization program proposed in 2010 today has a price tag approaching $2 trillion. That estimate is likely to escalate even further by 2050—the supposed end date for modernization.

Supporting nuclear modernization at any price is neither necessary nor affordable. Instead, Congress needs to improve, and be held accountable for, fiscal oversight of the nuclear arsenal.

Congress should first start by looking at the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In January of this year, the Air Force announced that the price tag for its new ICBM—the Sentinel—had increased by more than 37 percent. This triggered a review mandated by the Nunn-McCurdy Act—a 1982 law that sought to rein in the spiraling cost of military spending. Sentinel’s increased cost—from $96 billion to $130 billion over the next 10 years—is a “critical breach” of the act and should lead to termination of the program. To avoid this, the secretary of defense must explain the cause of the cost growth and restructure the program, which he is expected to do in coming months.

But the Sentinel “critical breach” underplays modernization’s inflation. In 2015 the U.S. Air Force put the price of a new ICBM program at $62 billion and argued that a new missile would be cheaper than maintaining the current Minuteman III ICBMs. A year later an independent Pentagon evaluation had argued that costs could go as high as $150 billion—yet the official estimate put the price at $85 billion. Congress failed to investigate why the budget request was based on the lower figure. So far, no hearings are planned to investigate the Sentinel cost overrun or to consider the options for restructuring or eliminating the program. For perspective, Congress has held two hearings on UFOs in the last two years.

Not to be outdone, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—the part of the Department of Energy in charge of making warheads for the nuclear arsenal—announced on April 18 that building the facilities to make plutonium pits for those warheads would cost $28 to $37 billion—a significant jump over the 2018 estimate of $8.6 to 14.8 billion. But that increase doesn’t capture the full picture of the cost inflation that has plagued pit production.

Until 1989, pits were made at Rocky Flats, a U.S. government facility operated by a contractor that was raided by the FBI and subsequently closed after numerous environmental and safety violations. Since that time, only a handful of pits have been made, all at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which itself has a history of safety problems.

In the late 1990s, NNSA began proposing expanded pit production at Los Alamos. In 2001 it proposed a facility to produce 80 pits per year at an estimated cost of $375 million. By 2011 the price tag for pit production had grown to between $3.7 and $5.8 billion—even at that time seen as unrealistically low because the facility’s design had yet to be completed and the estimate was for construction only, not operations and maintenance. By 2014, that plan was abandoned, and a new one was introduced with an estimated cost of $4.3 billion. Soon that too ran over budget and behind schedule. You might notice a pattern here.

At this point, Congress stepped in. But not to investigate the reasons for the cost overruns. Instead, in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress simply ordered NNSA to succeed. It decreed that NNSA had to make 80 pits per year by 2027, later extended to 2030. Frustrated with the seeming inability of Los Alamos to make progress, in 2018 pit production was expanded to another NNSA facility: the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The plan now is to repurpose for pit production a building originally intended to recycle plutonium from dismantled Cold War nuclear weapons to turn it into fuel for nuclear reactors. But that original disarmament project was terminated in 2018 after costs rose from a 2004 estimate of $1.8 billion to $17.2 billion. Congress never held hearings to assess the reasons for this cost escalation, lessons learned or how to prevent similar problems in the future.

If major projects at NASA, the Veterans Administration or almost any other government agency mimicked these problems, Congress would hold hearings and demand explanations. Nuclear modernization deserves the same hard scrutiny.

Congress should require independent cost estimates of the Sentinel program, pit production at both Los Alamos and Savannah River, and any other major nuclear modernization program where the estimated cost exceeds the original baseline by 50 percent or more—a threshold in the Nunn-McCurdy Act. These estimates should be undertaken by an entity that has no fiscal stake in the outcome, and is politically insulated from those who do.

Unlike the Defense Department’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, which has a track record of independent analysis, the NNSA has struggled to develop a similar oversight capability. The NNSA remains on GAO’s list of federal agencies that are “vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement,” or that need broad reform, since the list was first created in 1990. The NNSA has shown, repeatedly, that it cannot change itself.

It’s reasonable, of course, that cost estimates for projects involving uncertainties such as technologies still under development can result in a range of estimates. Routinely rubber-stamping endorsements of the lower figures, however, should stop. Instead the president’s budget submission should adopt the highest credible estimate, accompanied by an explanation of how the program will strive to come in under budget.

Independent cost estimates typically link budgets to services, such as plutonium processing, or material things such as facilities or weapons. In the case of nuclear modernization, though, that’s not sufficient; the link needs to extend to the impact on the strategy of deterrence. Nuclear weapons threaten the lives of billions of people. Does $14 billion worth of pit production provide better deterrence than $37 billion worth? Is a $118 million Sentinel missile more effective at preventing nuclear war than an existing ICBM that costs half as much? It’s only by linking dollars to deterrence that Congress can assess the tradeoffs and move beyond the notion that nuclear modernization is justified regardless of the final price tag.

May 14, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sizewell C nuclear station ‘absolutely not inevitable’ says campaigner – Can investors be found?

The official cost of Sizewell C has been put at £20bn by the government, but many observers expect the final bill to be much higher due to increased building costs.

who would want to invest in an expensive project which will take 12 years to build, with no guarantee of a return for many more years?

Andrew Sinclair – Political editor, BBC East, Sun, 12 May 2024  https://au.news.yahoo.com/sizewell-c-absolutely-not-inevitable-091834059.html

A leading campaigner against the Sizewell C nuclear power station has said its construction is still not inevitable.

The planned energy plant, on the Suffolk coast, has just been granted its nuclear site licence.

But Alison Downes, director of campaign group Stop Sizewell C, has questioned whether the government will be able to attract enough private investment.

Ministers, who have already contributed £2.5bn to the project, have said they remain committed to the scheme.

The decision to grant Sizewell C a nuclear site licence on 7 May was described by the project team and local business groups as a “huge milestone”.

It came just months after the government granted a Development Consent Order to Sizewell C and pledged further funding to the project. Ministers have regularly referred to Sizewell C when discussing the country’s nuclear programme.

Andrew Bowie, Minister for Nuclear and Renewables, said: “Sizewell C will be the cornerstone of the UK’s clean energy transition, supplying six million homes with green energy for decades.”

But despite plenty of signs that the project could be coming closer to reality, Alison Downes insisted on BBC Politics East that “it’s absolutely not inevitable”.

“We still don’t know who is going to pay for it. The government is trying to raise funds at the moment, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be successful,” she said.

The government agreed to take a 50% stake in the development of Sizewell C after concerns about the involvement of Chinese investors and it is looking for investors to help fund the project.

Can investors be found?

The official cost of Sizewell C has been put at £20bn by the government, but many observers expect the final bill to be much higher due to increased building costs.

The prime minister told me last year that there had already been “encouraging early interest” from people wanting to invest.

But campaigners have questioned who would want to invest in an expensive project which will take 12 years to build, with no guarantee of a return for many more years.

Ms Downes, who also has concerns about the safety of the site from rising sea levels and the project’s impact on local habitats, said: “A lot of taxpayers’ money has gone into a project that has no absolute certainty of whether or not it’s going ahead.”

The argument for nuclear

But Richard Rout, the deputy leader of Suffolk County Council, told BBC Politics East that the demand for more homegrown green energy meant that Sizewell was essential.

“I think Sizewell C is now at a point where it has to happen. We need nuclear in this country to give us energy independence,” he said.

“We are now seeing Sizewell C move forward and for me [the priority now] is about minimising the impacts on the local community and maximising the benefits.”

But Alison Downes pledged to “absolutely keep fighting” .

A final decision on whether to go ahead with the project is expected to be taken by energy company EDF towards the end of 2024.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

US nuclear industry clamors for waiver process details as Russian uranium ban looms

companies with enriched uranium contracts with Russia can seek to continue to receive their material .

Questions were raised during the meeting about whether the names of those receiving waivers would be made public

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/latest-news/electric-power/051024-us-nuclear-industry-clamors-for-waiver-process-details-as-russian-uranium-ban-looms Author, Andrea Jennetta     William Freebairn 10 May 24

HIGHLIGHTS

DOE plans to issue notice on process shortly after bill enactment

Utilities worried about criteria for showing inability to obtain fuel

Waiver process important to entire industry, Centrus CEO says.

US nuclear operators and nuclear fuel market participants have asked a series of questions to the US Department of Energy in a meeting last week, eager to learn details of a system of waivers being developed in connection with the passage of a ban on Russian enriched uranium late last month. DOE officials, while guarded, told the industry it would be ready for speedy and reasoned adjudication of waiver claims, according to attendees.

The Senate unanimously approved the measure April 30, following passage of a similar bill in the House of Representatives in December. The ban takes effect 90 days after President Joe Biden signs the bill into law.

Under an as-yet disclosed waiver system, companies with enriched uranium contracts with Russia can seek to continue to receive their material by demonstrating they do not have viable alternate sources of fuel or that continued deliveries are in the national interest.

Two people who attended an April 30 meeting with DOE officials said the department indicated it will be ready to publish a Federal Register notice within 30 days of enactment of the legislation outlining the process for seeking waivers.

The legislation is designed to reduce US reliance on Russian uranium for nuclear fuel following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russia supplies about 20% of US reactor operators’ enrichment needs, although most utilities have sought to reduce their dependence on Russian state nuclear company Rosatom in recent months.

However, a utility fuel buyer said there was skepticism among some participants that the department would be ready, as there are myriad complexities around the process and timetables.

“They still don’t have a lot of answers,” the fuel buyer said.

Biden has not signed the legislation, which was sent by Congress to the White House May 8, according to one meeting participant. The bill becomes law if the president does not veto it within 10 days of formal receipt from Congress, whether he signs it or not, several meeting participants said.

Questions were raised during the meeting about whether the names of those receiving waivers would be made public, whether uranium coming into the country for fabrication into fuel and export out of the US would require or receive waivers and what criteria would be used to permit utilities to receive Russian fuel, the people said. All those who spoke about the meeting did so on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting and avoid hurting their relationship with the DOE.

The rapid timeframes involved raise questions as well, the fuel buyer said. “How are they going to do this on a 90-day schedule, when there are ships literally on the water” containing enriched uranium, the person said.

A uranium producer in attendance said DOE officials indicated they would seek to act as rapidly as possible for requests on material in transit or requiring a decision regarding short-term deliveries.

An industry official who attended the meeting said DOE indicated it would take a “relaxed approach, particularly over the next couple of years,” in approving end-user waivers. Still, the department was noncommittal in its plans, the person said.

DOE plans to request detailed information on why a delivery should be allowed, with information on the impact on the national interest as well as the potential challenges in securing replacement material, the attendees said. Utilities would need to show that inventories are not sufficient to replace the imported material, one of the people said. DOE would adjudicate those claims, this person said.

The uranium producer said the passage of the legislation offered miners a better option than the potential for executive action which the White House had indicated could take place should Congress fail to act. He said DOE in its meeting seemed unaware that the legislation was about to be passed by the Senate later that day, and so some of the department’s comments were guarded because officials did not know whether an executive order barring the imports or the language of the House legislation would prevail.

Centrus preparing for waiver submittal

The applicant for the waivers must be the importer of record, one person who attended the meeting said. This would mean that in the case of re-sellers of Russian enrichment services, such as Centrus, the re-seller would apply on behalf of customers, this person said.

Centrus and its predecessor companies have for several years purchased from Russia’s state-owned Tenex an annual quantity of Russian enriched uranium under a quota set by the Russian suspension agreement, then sold the LEU to utility customers.

“We obviously have all the intentions to apply for a waiver at the first opportunity,” said Centrus President, CEO and Director Amir Vexler in a first quarter earnings call May 8. “Yes, we’ve been preparing. We’re going to make use of this process, and it is extremely important, not only to Centrus, but to the industry here in the US.”

The company could find itself in a precarious financial position without access to enriched uranium to deliver to customers……………………………….

International impact

US utilities are not the only ones affected by the ban, several people said. Any foreign utility that has Russian enriched uranium delivered to a US fuel fabricator for re-export as fuel would also need a waiver, they noted.

DOE mentioned that utilities should be aware of at least one such pending case, which two people said is likely a reference to Mexico’s Comision Federal de Electricidad, which operates two GE-supplied boiling water reactors that get fuel from the US.

DOE officials reminded participants in the meeting that any process and all waivers will still have to comply with US sanctions requirements, one attendee said, and that waiver requests will have to take into account the availability of the American Assured Fuel Reserve, a stockpile of government-owned enriched uranium designed to protect nuclear operators from a disruption of nuclear fuel availability.

DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

NuScale, maker of small nuclear reactors, reported revenue of $1.4 million and net loss of $48.1 million for the three-month period ended March 31, 2024

NuScale reported revenue of $1.4 million and net loss of $48.1 million for
the three-month period ended March 31, 2024, compared to revenue of $5.5
million and a net loss of $35.6 million for the same period in 2023. Higher
net loss reported in the period was driven by a one-time $3.2 million
charge associated with continuing our transition from an R&D-based company
to commercial operations, and a $9.0 million non-cash adjustment to the
fair value of our warrants due to an increase in the Company’s share price.

Business Wire 9th May 2024

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240509403598/en

May 12, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) Reports Q1 Loss, Misses Revenue Estimates

Zacks Equity Research, Fri, 10 May 2024

NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) came out with a quarterly loss of $0.21 per share in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. This compares to loss of $0.16 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items.

A quarter ago, it was expected that this company would post a loss of $0.22 per share when it actually produced a loss of $0.25, delivering a surprise of -13.64%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has not been able to surpass consensus EPS estimates.

NuScale Power , which belongs to the Zacks Electronics – Power Generation industry, posted revenues of $1.38 million for the quarter ended March 2024, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 56.22%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $5.51 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters.

The sustainability of the stock’s immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management’s commentary on the earnings cal

……………………………………………………. the shares are expected to underperform the market in the near future. …………………………..  https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/nuscale-power-corporation-smr-reports-213506291.html

May 12, 2024 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Sam Altman’s nuclear energy company Oklo plunges 54% in New York Stock Exchange debut

Hayden Field, MacKenzie Sigalos, 10 May 24, https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/10/sam-altman-takes-nuclear-startup-oklo-public-to-power-ai-ambitions.html

KEY POINTS

  • Sam Altman, best known as the CEO of OpenAI, is also chairman of a nuclear power company called Oklo, which has just gone public through a special purpose acquisition company.
  • Oklo merged with AltC Acquisition Corp., Altman’s SPAC, and is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “OKLO.”
  • The company received about $306 million in gross proceeds upon closing the transaction, according to a release.

Sam Altman is now chairman of a public company. But it’s not OpenAI.

On Friday, advanced nuclear fission company Oklo started trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, which has yet to generate any revenue, went public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called AltC Acquisition Corp., founded and led by Altman.

Under the ticker symbol “OKLO,” shares plummeted 54% on Friday to $8.45, valuing the company at about $364 million. Oklo received roughly $306 million in gross proceeds in the transaction, according to a release.

Oklo’s business model is based on commercializing nuclear fission, the reaction that fuels all nuclear power plants. Instead of conventional reactors, the company aims to use mini nuclear reactors housed in A-frame structures. Its goal is to sell the energy to end users such as the U.S. Air Force and big tech companies.

Oklo is currently working to build its first small-scale reactor in Idaho, which could eventually power the types of data centers that OpenAI and other artificial intelligence companies need to run their AI models and services.

Altman is co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, which has been valued at over $80 billion by private investors. He’s said that he sees nuclear energy as one of the best ways to solve the problem of growing demand for AI, and the energy that powers the technology, without relying on fossil fuels. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have also invested in nuclear plants in recent years.

“I don’t see a way for us to get there without nuclear,” Altman told CNBC in 2023. “I mean, maybe we could get there just with solar and storage. But from my vantage point, I feel like this is the most likely and the best way to get there.”

In an interview with CNBC Thursday, Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte confirmed that the company has yet to generate revenue and has no nuclear plants deployed at the moment. He said the company is targeting 2027 for its first plant to come online.

Going the SPAC route is risky. So-called reverse mergers became popular in the low-interest rate days of 2020 and 2021 when tech valuations were soaring and investors were looking for growth over profit. But the SPAC market collapsed in 2022 alongside rising rates and hasn’t recovered.

AI-related companies, on the other hand, are the new darlings of Wall Street.

“SPACs haven’t exactly had the best performances in the past couple of years, so for us to have sort of the outcome that we’ve had here is obviously a function of the work we put in, but also what we’re building and also the fact that the market sees the opportunity sets here,” said DeWitte, who co-founded the company in 2013. “I think it’s very promising on multiple fronts for [the] nuclear, AI, data center push, as well as the energy transition piece.”

The company has seen its fair share of regulatory setbacks. In 2022, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo’s application for an Idaho reactor. The company has been working on a new application, which it isn’t aiming to submit to the NRC until early next year, DeWitte said, adding that it’s currently in the “pre-application engagement” stage with the commission.

Altman got involved with Oklo while president of the startup incubator Y Combinator. Oklo went into the program in 2014 after an earlier meeting between Altman and DeWitte. In 2015, Altman invested in the company and became chairman.

It’s not Altman’s only foray into nuclear energy or other infrastructure that could power large-scale AI growth.

In 2021, Altman led a $500 million funding round in clean energy firm Helion, which is working to develop and commercialize nuclear fusion. Helion said in a blog post at the time that the capital would go toward its electricity demonstration generator, Polaris, “which we expect to demonstrate net electricity from fusion in 2024.”

Altman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In recent years, Altman has also poured money into chip endeavors and investments that could help power the AI tools OpenAI builds.


Just before his brief ouster as OpenAI CEO in November, he was reportedly seeking billions of dollars for a chip venture codenamed “Tigris” to eventually compete with Nvidia.

Altman in 2018 invested in AI chip startup Rain Neuromorphics, based near OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters. The next year, OpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million on Rain’s chips. In December, the U.S. compelled a Saudi Aramco-backed venture capital firm to sell its shares in Rain.

DeWitte told CNBC that the data center represents “a pretty exciting opportunity.”

“What we’ve seen is there’s a lot of interest with AI, specifically,” he said. “AI compute needs are significant. It opens the door for a lot of different approaches in terms of how people think about designing and developing AI infrastructure.”

May 11, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

How long does it take to build a nuclear reactor? We ask France

Sophie Vorrath, May 8, 2024,  https://reneweconomy.com.au/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a-nuclear-reactor-we-ask-france/

A short answer to this question might be, it depends who you ask. Ask Australia’s Opposition leader Peter Dutton, for instance, and he will tell you a federal Coalition government under his leadership could have a nuclear power plant up and running in Australia within a decade.

Ask the highly experienced French state-owned nuclear power giant EDF, which manages 56 reactors in the world’s most nuclear dependent country, and you would get rather a different answer.

Bloomberg reports that EDF this week got regulatory approval to start up its newest nuclear reactor, the 1.6GW Flamanville plant in France’s north west – a milestone that is 12 years behind schedule and more than four times over budget, thanks to a range of construction problems including concrete weakness and faulty pipe welds.

The green light allows EDF to load the fuel in the reactor, proceed with trials, then begin operations, the Autorite de Surete Nucleaire said in a statement on Tuesday. Further approvals will be needed upon reaching key milestones during the trial phase, the regulator said.

According to other reports, EDF said last month it hoped to connect the Flamanville pressurised reactor to the national grid by the European summer and reach full power by the end of the year.

But it will not be smooth sailing from there. A faulty vessel cover still needs replacing at the plant, with reports suggesting this has been pushed out to 2026, when the plant would be shut down for up to a year.

Meanwhile, EDF in March raised its cost estimate for the construction of six new nuclear reactors to €67.4 billion ($A102.5 billion), Reuters has reported, up from the company’s first estimated their cost of €51.7 billion.

So, how long does it take to build a nuclear reactor?

Kobad Bhavnagri, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s energy expert and global head of strategy says the long delay and cost blowout at Flamanville 3 is not an isolated incident.

“Very similar delays and multifold cost blowouts have occurred with recent reactor builds in the UK, Finland and USA,” Bhavnagri writes on LinkedIn.

“Countries with well established nuclear industries.

“The lesson here? Don’t believe anyone who says they know how much it will cost and how long it will take to build a new nuclear plant (unless they are in China).”

May 9, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Nuclear-waste compensation (?bribery) numbers raise eyebrows

South Bruce would receive $418 million in total compensation if its site is selected; the comparison figure for Ignace is $170 million.

NWO Newswatch, Mike Stimpson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, 3 May 24

IGNACE – As a community vote on nuclear-waste concluded, residents of this Northwest municipality were talking about the deep geological repository’s other potential host municipality.

The Municipality of South Bruce, in southwestern Ontario near Lake Huron, on Monday published the hosting agreement it negotiated with the Nuclear Waste Management Organization.

The South Bruce agreement promises far more for that municipality than Ignace would receive if it is selected to host repository operations.

If the South Bruce site is selected for the proposed underground waste storage facility, the municipality would receive about $418 million over the project’s 138-year life, according to documents released by South Bruce.

The comparison figure for Ignace is approximately $170 million.

Reaction on social media included Ignace residents saying the divergent figures make Ignace look either foolish or an attractive bargain………………………………………………………..

Both municipalities must communicate their continued willingness to be host communities to the NWMO before a site is chosen.

If South Bruce voters decide in a referendum on Oct. 28 that they are not willing to continue as a potential host community, the industry-funded NWMO would remit a $4-million “exit payment” to the municipality.

If the Township of Ignace declares itself not willing, the exit payment would be $5 million.

If South Bruce is willing but not selected, it is to receive $8 million; Ignace would receive the same amount if willing but not selected.

In addition to the municipalities, nearby First Nations must be willing to participate in order for a site to be selected.

For the Revell Lake site, Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation must express willingness. The potential First Nations partner for the South Bruce site is Saugeen Ojibway Nation.

The NWMO has committed to selecting a site by December 31, 2024.

Construction is projected to begin around 2034 and take about 10 years to complete, Ponka said.  https://www.nwonewswatch.com/local-news/nuclear-waste-compensation-numbers-raise-eyebrows-8683186

May 7, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Georgia’s Vogtle 2 nuclear reactors cost over $30Billion, – but were meant to cost $14Billion

Georgia Power announced this week that the 1,114-megawatt (MW) Unit 4
nuclear power reactor at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Georgia, entered
into commercial operation after connecting to the power grid in March 2024.
The commercial start of Unit 4 completes the 11-year expansion project at
Plant Vogtle.

No nuclear reactors are under construction now in the United
States.

Vogtle Unit 3 began commercial operation in July 2023. The plant’s
first two reactors, with a combined 2,430 MW of nameplate capacity, began
operations in 1987 and 1989. The two new reactors bring Plant Vogtle’s
total generating capacity to nearly 5 gigawatts (GW), surpassing the
4,210-MW Palo Verde plant in Arizona and making Vogtle’s four units the
largest nuclear power plant in the United States.

Construction at the two
new reactor sites began in 2009. Originally expected to cost $14 billion
and begin commercial operation in 2016 (Vogtle 3) and in 2017 (Vogtle 4),
the project ran into significant construction delays and cost overruns.
Georgia Power now estimates the total cost of the project to be more than
$30 billion.

US Energy Information Administration 1st May 2024

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61963

May 5, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

A new nuclear energy law will likely mean higher utility bills

RADIO IQ | By Michael Pope, May 2, 2024,  https://www.wvtf.org/news/2024-05-02/a-new-nuclear-energy-law-will-likely-mean-higher-utility-bills

Customers of Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power might soon start seeing higher electric bills. That’s because of a new law signed by Governor Glenn Youngkin that allows for utilities to make customers pay for the costs of developing nuclear power facilities – things like permitting, for example. The bill was introduced by Senator Dave Marsden of Fairfax County.

“Ratepayers could be responsible for $1.40 a month for up to five years in creating the funds necessary to get through the nuclear regulatory commission process, which is hugely expensive,” Marsden says. “It takes four to five years.”

Utility customers don’t usually pay for things like development, and Josephus Allmond at the Southern Environmental Law Center says this poses a risk for ratepayers.

“The risk is that customers are footing the bill for this development several years, and if it doesn’t come to fruition, then they’ve just spent $500 million or $125 million, depending on the utility you’re talking about, going towards development of something that will never benefit them,” Allmond explains.

The new law goes into effect July 1st, but utilities would need to have any plans approved by the State Corporation Commission. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the goal for Virginia to be emissions free by 2050, a benchmark laid out in the Virginia Clean Economy Act.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

May 4, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Industrial action by nuclear submarine workforce hits Rolls Royce

GMB members working on the company’s nuclear submarine programme have
begun industrial action. The action comes after 90 per cent of GMB members
at the company supported action if company bosses failed to present a pay
rise acceptable to union members. Known as ‘work to rule’, the
industrial action will see GMB members applying strict limits to working
outside of pre-agreed processes. Rolls-Royce is a world leader in the field
of submarine technology, as well as being the supplier to Britain’s
domestic nuclear submarine fleet.

 UK Defence Journal 30th April 2024

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/industrial-action-by-nuclear-sub-workforce-hits-rolls-royce

May 3, 2024 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Five Things the “Nuclear Bros” Don’t Want You to Know About Small Modular Reactors

1. SMRs are not more economical than large reactors.

2. SMRs are not generally safer or more secure than large light-water reactors.

3. SMRs will not reduce the problem of what to do with radioactive waste.

4. SMRs cannot be counted on to provide reliable and resilient off-the-grid power for facilities, such as data centers, bitcoin mining, hydrogen or petrochemical production.

5. SMRs do not use fuel more efficiently than large reactors.

Ed Lyman, April 30, 2024 https://blog.ucsusa.org/edwin-lyman/five-things-the-nuclear-bros-dont-want-you-to-know-about-small-modular-reactors/

Even casual followers of energy and climate issues have probably heard about the alleged wonders of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). This is due in no small part to the “nuclear bros”: an active and seemingly tireless group of nuclear power advocates who dominate social media discussions on energy by promoting SMRs and other “advanced” nuclear technologies as the only real solution for the climate crisis. But as I showed in my 2013 and 2021 reports, the hype surrounding SMRs is way overblown, and my conclusions remain valid today.

Unfortunately, much of this SMR happy talk is rooted in misinformation, which always brings me back to the same question: If the nuclear bros have such a great SMR story to tell, why do they have to exaggerate so much?

What are SMRs?

SMRs are nuclear reactors that are “small” (defined as 300 megawatts of electrical power or less), can be largely assembled in a centralized facility, and would be installed in a modular fashion at power generation sites. Some proposed SMRs are so tiny (20 megawatts or less) that they are called “micro” reactors. SMRs are distinct from today’s conventional nuclear plants, which are typically around 1,000 megawatts and were largely custom-built. Some SMR designs, such as NuScale, are modified versions of operating water-cooled reactors, while others are radically different designs that use coolants other than water, such as liquid sodium, helium gas, or even molten salts.

To date, however, theoretical interest in SMRs has not translated into many actual reactor orders. The only SMR currently under construction is in China. And in the United States, only one company—TerraPower, founded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates—has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a permit to build a power reactor (but at 345 megawatts, it technically isn’t even an SMR).

The nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on SMRs primarily because some recent large reactor projects, including Vogtle units 3 and 4 in the state of Georgia, have taken far longer to build and cost far more than originally projected. The failure of these projects to come in on time and under budget undermines arguments that modern nuclear power plants can overcome the problems that have plagued the nuclear industry in the past.

Developers in the industry and the US Department of Energy say that SMRs can be less costly and quicker to build than large reactors and that their modular nature makes it easier to balance power supply and demand. They also argue that reactors in a variety of sizes would be useful for a range of applications beyond grid-scale electrical power, including providing process heat to industrial plants and power to data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, petrochemical production, and even electrical vehicle charging stations.

Here are five facts about SMRs that the nuclear industry and the “nuclear bros” who push its message don’t want you, the public, to know.

Continue reading →

May 2, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Reference, safety, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | 1 Comment

Australia: Critical worker shortage menaces nuclear-powered submarine workforce

INDUSTRY, 29 APRIL 2024, By: Liam Garman

The document, sourced through a freedom of information request from former independent senator for South Australia Rex Patrick, examined the civilian nuclear workforce required to maintain a nuclear reactor plant.

According to the document, Australia will require over 75,000 additional electricians, construction managers, metal machinists and welders in its “feeder workforce”, a term for Australia’s pool of workers that are eligible to pursue a career in the submarine workforce.

In particular, by financial year 2030–2031, Australia will require:

  • An additional 33,553 electricians;
  • An additional 19,364 construction managers;
  • An additional 11,753 metal machinists;
  • An additional 12,280 welders.

The figures were assessed by calculating the difference between the projected demand and supply of skilled workers.

The document warns that the total shortfall will be even larger than the initial figures, confirming that the totals do not include additional demand produced by the nuclear-powered submarine industry.

The report raises an alarm for policymakers, noting that Australia has neither a skilled nuclear-powered workforce to leverage for the construction and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines, nor does it have a big enough pool of eligible candidates.

“There is no current Australian talent pool with the required mix of qualifications, skills, experience, and behaviours to fulfil the civilian nuclear workforce roles,” the document read……………………………………………………………

Defence may also face additional constraints with the decision to build the SSN-AUKUS at Osborne in South Australia and maintain the capability in Henderson in Western Australia.

The research found the greatest feeder workforce is located in NSW, followed by Victoria and Queensland, while the state with the fewest skills is South Australia.  https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/industry/13993-critical-worker-shortage-menaces-nuclear-powered-submarine-workforce

May 2, 2024 Posted by | employment | Leave a comment

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