Jacob DeWitte is determined to shake up the struggling nuclear energy industry by moving his company, Oklo, through the cumbersome U.S. regulatory process faster than anyone before.
DeWitte, 34, is impatient because speed is necessary in order for his small, advanced nuclear reactor, an emissions-free technology of a type that has never been deployed, to be ready in time to help the world curb climate change.
“In this field, there was a lot of inertia,” DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of California-based Oklo, told the Washington Examiner. “Things have to be done a certain way because that’s how it’s been done. We have been pretty successful in questioning some of those things on how to do things more quickly, efficiently, and better.”
But the rapid permitting process granted to Oklo and other developers of smaller nuclear reactors has prompted criticism from some environmental groups, which argue it’s dangerous.
"This is premature at best," Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Washington Examiner for a story earlier this year. "These reactors are still on paper. Being too overconfident in the systems you have is the kind of complacency that brought the world Fukushima."
In DeWitte's view, though, environmentalist opposition itself is a main reason that the reactors don't yet exist because it has ensured that the technology faces burdensome reviews. And in working to delay the technology, he said, critics are undercutting their goal of boosting carbon emissions-free energy.
“It's ironic to me. Those who say it won't be ready in time are the ones working to delay it more,” DeWitte said.
He said he thinks that nuclear power will be necessary in any zero-emissions scenario. Economic models have shown that wind and solar combined with battery storage can get the world to about 80% zero-carbon electricity, but the rest would have to be covered by something else, such as nuclear power, that is available around the clock and not dependent on the weather.
When nuclear plants close, a common occurrence recently among traditional large plants because of cheaper alternatives, they are often replaced by carbon-emitting natural gas.
“Are we really wanting to say environmental impacts should be looked at with more scrutiny and through antiquated processes to give preferences to dirtier technologies?” DeWitte said.
A regulatory milestone
This month, Oklo’s tiny, 1.5-megawatt advanced reactor became the first nuclear design that does not use water as a coolant to have its application accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just four months after applying amid a global pandemic.
The acceptance, hailed by the nuclear industry as a milestone, was a key step toward DeWitte’s goal of having the first of his reactor designs, known as Aurora, operational by 2023 or sooner.
"This signals NRC’s willingness to modernize regulatory approaches to keep pace with industry innovation and acknowledges the unique characteristics and simplified designs of advanced reactors," said Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute.
The rapid permitting process granted to Oklo and other developers of advanced reactors comes at the direction of Congress, where bipartisan majorities are hopeful that smaller, cheaper, and theoretically safer nuclear reactors will help balance out wind and solar.
Oklo's application to the NRC was novel. Generally, nuclear reactor designers have to submit a design certification first before submitting a second “combined license” application, authorizing the licensee, usually a utility, to operate a nuclear power plant.
Oklo, however, skipped the design certification and submitted only a combined license application since it plans on operating its own nuclear plant.
DeWitte said Oklo’s consolidated process was a significant costs saving. He said Oklo hopes to receive NRC approval of the application within 36 months.
“We are the first to do it this way, and there is a lot of interest in what we did,” DeWitte said. “No one thought we could submit an application in the timeline we did.”
By contrast, NuScale, an Oregon-based firm on pace this year to be the first small nuclear reactor to get NRC approval, used the traditional application process because it plans to sell power from its 60 MW reactors to utilities.
Its design certification application numbered thousands of pages, according to Brett Rampal, nuclear team manager at the Clean Air Task Force and who used to work for NuScale. Oklo’s combined application was less than 1,000 pages.
Rampal said the NRC had not updated its application processes since the Reagan administration, before a burst of small reactor developers came requesting streamlined processes in the mid-2010s.
"The NRC, while full of intelligent and well-experienced people, was not prepared to start reviewing a bunch of advanced reactor processes,” Rampal said. “They needed to work with applicants on the best way to do this."
Smaller footprint, shorter reviews
DeWitte and Rampal said that shorter reviews are appropriate because smaller reactor cores produce less radioactive material that could be released in an accident.
The NRC is considering a proposal by Oklo, along with other companies, that would allow them to reduce the size of the emergency planning zone around a nuclear plant.
DeWitte said he envisions Aurora being built with a “relatively small footprint,” operating in a power plant less than 5,000 square feet, with the surrounding land being under an acre.
The company plans to build additional reactors larger in size, but it has not disclosed details of other models yet.
DeWitte said he is adamant in his belief that his nuclear reactor should not be treated the same as traditional large ones.
“We are going through the same rigorous process. It’s just scientifically informed to what matters to ensure public safety,” DeWitte said.
Born to love nuclear, with a passion for improving it
DeWitte’s determination to work on nuclear energy started in childhood. His father, a civil engineer, took him to the National Atomic Museum (as it was called then) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the city where he was born and raised.
As a child, he became frustrated with video games such as SimCity that depicted nuclear power “inaccurately” as dangerous and expensive, prompting him in grade school to write contrarian papers on the value of nuclear power.
By the time he attended college, DeWitte realized the industry needed shaking up to be successful.
In 2013, while studying nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, DeWitte founded Oklo.
Today, he’s running it with a fundamentally different model and technology than even some of his peers.
Oklo’s Aurora “micro reactor” is only 1.5 MW in capacity, less than 1% the size of a traditional reactor. Aurora is smaller still compared to advanced reactor competitor designs from Terrestrial Energy and Moltex Energy, which are 200 MW and 300 MW in size, respectively.
Aurora reactors, built underground, would use metal fuel to produce heat, which would then go through a copper heat pipe to transfer heat from the buried reactor to the surface and be converted into electricity.
Oklo said its reactor will be able to run for at least 20 years without needing to refuel.
The reactor is designed to operate at a higher temperature, enabling it to provide power in other applications outside of electricity, such as heating for industrial purposes.
“They are taking a very interesting approach with a lot of new and novel sort of thinking with it,” Rampal said. “We need as many shots on goal as we can get, and I hope they are a part of the solution.”
Oklo and its supporters are marketing the reactor as especially fitting for remote areas that rely on dirty and expensive diesel generators, with its small size allowing it to be deployed quickly in disaster situations such as Hurricane Maria, which destroyed Puerto Rico’s power grid.
“If you are paying such a high price for diesel fuel already, you are probably interested in what might be a high, upfront cost and very low competitive energy costs for your small island or village,” Rampal said.
Betting on himself
Oklo is structured differently than other nuclear companies. The company, funded by private investors, is planning to build, own, and operate its first nuclear plant itself, functioning as its own utility, a move that DeWitte said will increase its profit margins to compensate for the high, upfront cost of a first-of-its-kind technology.
“A lot of private investors have recognized the nuclear business model of being entirely government-centric is changing to where you are seeing tons of money coming into the space,” DeWitte said. “The amount of capital going to nuclear is very exciting.”
Oklo is collaborating with the federal government, however. It has received permission from the Department of Energy to build and demonstrate its first Aurora reactor at the department’s Idaho National Laboratory.
DeWitte acknowledged his novel strategy and aggressive timeline is no “slam-dunk.”
But he said he appreciates the challenge and the expectations of providing a possible solution to combating climate change and proving he can make money doing it.
“It's an opportunity, and it's a burden in a good way,” DeWitte said. “It's a responsibility. It can be overwhelming. This is a really hard startup space to work in. But that’s very motivating.”
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