Oklo Offers 50 MW SMR to Power Shale Oil Operations

• Oklo Offers 50 MW SMR to Power Shale Oil Operations
• Newcleo Signs LFR Agreement With France’s CEA
• Partnership to Offer HTMR-100 SMR in South Africa
• UK Space Agency Awards Space Reactor Project to BWXT and Rolls-Royce
• NRC, Westinghouse Deny Involvement In Nuclear Power Project In Butte, MT

Oklo Offers 50 MW SMR to Power Shale Oil Operations

Oklo Inc. announced an agreement with Diamondback Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FANG), the largest independent producer headquartered in the shale-oil region to collaborate on a long-term Power Purchase Agreement(PPA).

The LOI signed by Diamondback outlines its intent to enter into a 20-year PPA with Oklo. The proposed agreement focuses on engaging Oklo’s Aurora powerhouses to supply reliable and emission-free electricity to Diamondback’s operations in the Permian Basin.

According to the terms of the LOI, Oklo intends to license, build, and operate powerhouses capable of generating 50 MW of electric power to Diamondback E&P LLC near Midland, Texas.

The LOI outlines options to renew and extend the potential PPA for an additional 20-year term. Oklo’s powerhouse designs are intended to be able to operate for 40 years, and because of Oklo’s design-build-own-operate business model, potential customers like Diamondback are expected to be able to purchase power without complex ownership issues or other capital requirements.

The Bloomberg wire service said in its report on the deal that Permian producers have increasingly shifted their operations from diesel generators to electricity supplied by the local power grid. It noted that the Texas grid can be shaky, especially in remote parts of the oil patch. A drilling site with its own nuclear plant would offer reliability without greenhouse gas emissions, since reactors generate power without spewing carbon dioxide.

Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte told Bloomberg it’s going to take a long time to curb the demand for oil. Incorporating nuclear power into the drilling process would help reduce greenhouse gases while oil is still needed.

“These fossil fuels are going to be produced. Do we want to burn carbon to produce them, or do we want to not burn carbon to produce them?” DeWitte said in an interview. “There’s a pretty obvious answer.”

Oklo, founded in 2013, plans to commercialize its liquid metal fast reactor technology in the Aurora ‘powerhouse’, a fast neutron reactor using heat pipes to transport heat from the reactor core to a supercritical carbon dioxide power conversion system to generate electricity. The company has received a site use permit from the US Department of Energy for a prototype unit to be built at the Idaho National Laboratory.

The 50 MW design is a major upgrade from Oklo’s current offering of a 15 MW reactor design. The 50 MW design has not yet been submitted to the NRC for a safety design review. Oklo failed in its previous attempt to license a much smaller design.

On July 11, 2023, Oklo and AltC Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: ALCC) announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement that upon closing would result in the combined company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “OKLO.”

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Newcleo Signs LFR Agreement With France’s CEA

• Collaboration ‘a major step forward’ for reactor deployment plans

(NucNet) European nuclear technology developer Newcleo has signed a partnership agreement with France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) that includes looking at possible scenarios for the development and deployment of advanced lead-cooled fast reactors (LFRs) for the French nuclear power fleet.

In a statement on April 9th Newcleo said the collaboration also covers work on fuel qualification, calculation codes, materials and instrumentation and measurement. It said the agreement marks a major step forward in the realization of its LFR project.

The firm is developing a 30 MW lead-cooled fast neutron demonstration nuclear plant and a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication unit. It said the two projects represent a total investment of €3 billion ($3.2 billion) in France.

Newcleo, which is based in the UK and has offices in France, Italy and Switzerland, says it is aiming to deliver its first reactor by 2033. The company was founded by Stefano Buono who is an Italian physicist and alumnus of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Earlier this month the UK-based Nuclear Industry Association said it had applied for a justification decision for Newcleo’s LFR – the first new reactor design submitted for consideration in the country for almost a decade and the first ever for an advanced reactor.

Newcleo says lead is abundant and has characteristics that allow high efficiencies in a nuclear plant and the ability to simplify reactor design and increase passive safety.

The company has announced a number of partnerships and agreements related to the development of its reactor technology. Earlier this year, it signed a joint venture with French startup Naarea to support the development and deployment of the two companies’ advanced reactors. The reactors are different technologies, but both make it possible to reuse spent fuel from conventional reactors, ensuring closure of the fuel cycle.

The company also has an agreement with Italy-based Maire Tecnimont subsidiaries NextChem Tech and Tecnimont to use its nuclear reactors to decarbonize the chemical industry, including hydrogen production

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Partnership to Offer HTMR-100 SMR in South Africa

(WNN) Koya Capital has signed a partnership agreement to work with Stratek Global to secure financing and construction of a $480 million first-of-a-kind reactor in South Africa.

The reactor is the HTMR-100 developed in Pretoria, South Africa, which produces 100 MW of heat and 35 MW of electricity and which is derived from the South African Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) program.

The design concept is a small-scale high-temperature reactor using graphite-coated spherical uranium oxycarbide tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel, with helium as the coolant. It is expected to be able to supply process heat as well as generating electricity. A cutaway of the reactor, much of which would be underground (Image: Stratek Global)

South Africa had been working on the PBMR project since 1993, however, in 2010 the government formally announced its decision no longer to invest in the project, which was then placed under ‘care and maintenance’ to protect its intellectual property and assets.

Chairman and CEO of Stratek Global, Kelvin Kemm, a former chairman of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, told World Nuclear News last year that thanks to the experience and legacy of the PBMR program the aim was to have a first HTMR-100 plant built within five years.

The new partnership follows what Stephen Edkins, head of CleanTech at tech consultancy Koya Capital, told Biznews was a period of due diligence which has convinced them of the potential of the technology and they will now work to ensure Stratek Global’s project is investor-ready, and to recommend the project to its investors, with a “strong commitment to break ground before the end of the year”.

Stratek stresses the low cooling-water needs, which vastly increases the numbers of potential sites in Africa and elsewhere, and the reactor’s ability to power, for example, a remote mine and community without requiring long-distance power distribution network lines.

Differences between the PBMR and the HTMR-100 include the gas outlet temperature being reduced from 940°C to 750°C. While the PBMR used a direct helium cycle through the reactor and into the turbines, the HTMR-100 instead takes the heat into a water heat exchanger or steam generator, which produces steam for conventional steam turbines or process heat. This means all the equipment downstream of the heat exchanger can be purchased off-the-shelf, reducing design time and costs.

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UK Space Agency Awards Space Reactor Development Project to BWXT and Rolls-Royce

• Award Is Part of Larger Teaming Agreement Between BWXT and Rolls-Royce for Future Collaboration

BWX Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BWXT) announced that it has partnered with Rolls-Royce and the team has secured funding for Phase 2 of the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund (IBF). The funding enables strategic research collaborations within the UK space sector and emerging space nations to work together on fission nuclear systems for space power missions.

The new $1.5 million award from the fund supports collaboration between Rolls-Royce and BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC (BWXT) to advance the technologies that benefit both the UK and U.S. space nuclear development programs.

The contract further strengthens UK and U.S. collaboration on first-of-a-kind space technology innovation as detailed under the Atlantic Declaration commitment. In an announcement made by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden on June 8, 2023, both countries pledged to study “opportunities for co-operation on space nuclear power and propulsion.”

The teaming agreement facilitates business collaboration and joint developments of new and novel nuclear applications in terrestrial, space and commercial maritime domains that utilize the core nuclear design and manufacturing strengths of each party.

BWXT AT’s focus has been on nuclear fuel design and engineering activities. As part of this program, BWXT AT has produced fuel kernels, coatings, design materials and manufacturing processes for fuel assemblies and conceptual reactor design efforts.

In 2021, BWXT AT was awarded a contract to produce a conceptual reactor design to support future mission needs. In 2023, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and NASA announced they will collaborate on the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, which will launch and demonstrate a nuclear thermal engine as soon as 2027. As a partner to Lockheed Martin, BWXT AT will deliver the nuclear reactor and fabricate the HALEU fuel under the program.

Rolls Royce said its work on micro reactors can support the following missions in space. The Micro-Reactor provides the opportunity to:

• Enable persistent and resilient power and propulsion to explore space
• Provide surface power for a lunar base
• Operate safely and reliably in even the harshest of environments

According to Rolls-Royce, nuclear power has the potential to dramatically increase the duration of future space missions. The company, whose small modular reactor division is developing land-based nuclear plants, said its plans to have a reactor ready to send to the Moon by the early 2030s.

It said nuclear power, effectively used in space, will deliver “a step change in mission capability across an extensive platform of applications”. Space microreactors are a solution to meet these requirements.

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NRC, Westinghouse Deny Involvement In Nuclear Power Project In Butte, MT

(NBC News Butte, MT ) Plans aired to build 500 MW of nuclear power using the Westinghouse eVinci micro reactor, along with claims of NRC approval of the design for construction, were fact checked by NBC News in Butte, MT. The news service reported that none of the claims are true.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) told the television news service that they have never been in communication with XGen and that there are no applications for the use of nuclear power in Montana.

“There are no applications before the NRC, and certainly no NRC approvals, for the project XGen describes in your article,” an NRC spokesperson said, following up with, “The NRC has had no interactions with XGen on any subject.”

Westinghouse provided NBC Montana with a similar statement saying, “We do not have a formal relationship or agreement with the individual cited in NBC Montana’s article.”

XGen Holdings chairman Christian Barlow had told the Butte Council of Commissioners that he planned to have 100 MW of nuclear power in operation by January 2026.

When asked about the rebuttal of his claims, Barlow said he offered explanations citing nondisclosure agreements and he insisted he’d received comments from the NRC about his plans.

According to Barlow’s Linkedin profile, his technical experience includes providing mechanical and electrical maintenance on nuclear missiles during his active duty service in the USAF. He later started a series of small businesses but none of them have any connection to the nuclear energy industry.

Why is this Type of Fact Checking Important in the Nuclear Energy Industry?

• The Legacy of Idaho’s Invisible Nuclear Reactor Lives On

The basis for the skepticism noted in this blog post is an experience reporting more than a decade ago on a penny stock fraud scheme (pump & dump) in Idaho that led to SEC and IRS criminal charges against the principals of a firm falsely claiming to be building a nuclear power plant there.

AEHI’s CEO failed to show up for a court appearance in May 2015 and has been a fugitive since then. AEHI’s VP pleaded guilty, went to jail, and was directed by the federal court to pay restitution to investors. The entire scam was nicknamed “Idaho’s invisible reactor.”

AEHI’s PR firm, based on Boise, had an unusual ability to frequently cite the committed or inferred involvement of multiple large nuclear firms in its project without there ever being a similar press statement from those cited in AEHI’s releases. Two reactor vendors and several EPC firms found themselves having to deny any involvement in the project.

Its not that people weren’t warned about what AEHI was up to. Interestingly, anti-nuclear groups were among those sounding the alarm early on. In fact, AEHI sued the Snake River Alliance (SRA) who’s 20-something leader at the time brazenly called the company a scam without any paperwork to prove it. She later turned out to be right and was exonerated by the courts as having engaged in protected free speech.

In a September 2007 visit to Boise then NRC Chairman Dale Klein, when asked about the AEHI project, commented that the agency had not received an application for a license from the firm. Klein had previously coined in a speech in June 2007 what became known, without his blessing, as the “no bozos rule” for new nuclear plants saying that the industry has no room for amateurs.

“My subject is something that each of the five Commissioners believe in, and have said before—which is this: owning a commercial nuclear reactor is not a business for amateurs. If the nuclear power business is treated with less than the seriousness it deserves—and people begin to think that anyone can just jump on the nuclear bandwagon—it opens up the very real danger of making the “wave” of the nuclear resurgence look more like a “bubble.” And bubbles have a tendency to pop.”

Readers are well advised with the increasing interest in nuclear energy that it will be accompanied by people who have no business in the industry and are just out to make a quick buck.

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