The Department of Energy has approved the Nuclear Safety Design Agreement for Oklo’s Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
The Nuclear Safety Design Agreement, the first under DOE’s nuclear fuel line pilot program, was approved by the Idaho Operations Office in under two weeks, according to Oklo’s Nov. 11 press release. The program is dedicated to creating advanced nuclear fuel lines.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based nuclear company Oklo’s Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility was selected to partake in DOE’s fuel pilot program in late September.
The Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility will make fuel for Oklo’s first commercial reactor, the Aurora-INL, which was also selected for DOE’s advanced reactor pilot program. That program sets out the goal of having at least three test reactors reach criticality by July 4, 2026.
The company broke ground on its pilot Aurora powerhouse in late September.
“This approval marks clear progress toward demonstrating how we can repurpose used nuclear fuel to power the next generation of clean energy reactors,” Oklo Co-Founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte said in the release.
Oklo’s Aurora powerhouse is a sodium-cooled fast reactor that uses metal fuel. The design of the reactor builds on the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), which operated in Idaho from 1964 to 1994, Oklo said.
In 2019, the company was granted access to the fuel material through a DOE process, according to the release. It also received a site-use permit at INL that same year.