Contractor selected to build advanced nuclear reactor in Idaho

Kiewit will begin pre-construction for the 75MW Aurora Powerhouse fast-neutron reactor, which will feature a core buried underground and heat pipes for heat removal, in 2025.

Oklo said that the fact that a significant portion of the construction scope for the powerhouse is non-nuclear suited Kiewit’s experience in large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects.

Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo, said, “We’ve completed key pre-construction milestones, including site characterisation work in Idaho, in partnership with the US Department of Energy and Idaho National Laboratory.

“Kiewit brings the execution strength and project delivery experience that are essential as we move into this next phase. This is a critical step in helping us build efficiently and deliver clean energy on a meaningful timeline. Advanced reactors will largely be able to be constructed differently than legacy plants, and a key pathway to realizing the economic benefits associated with that is to modernize how we design, procure, and build these plants.”

Commercial operations for the plant are targeted for late 2027 to early 2028. Oklo has submitted a custom combined licence application for an advanced to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, although it has not yet received approval.

The nuclear firm has also signed a series of power supply agreements with data centre companies, including a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with RPower in January this year and a non-binding agreement with US data centre firm Switch to supply up to 12GW of power late last year.

Oklo’s chairman for several years was OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, although he resigned from the nuclear fission start-up earlier this year to avoid potential conflicts of interest.