Oklo Inc. has been awarded a $4.5 million cost-share project along with Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The award is funded under the ARPA-E OPEN 2021 program, a $175 million funding opportunity that prioritizes funding technologies that support novel approaches to clean energy challenges.
“Oklo is excited to have been selected for this competitive award that incentivizes innovation and early-movers,” said Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and CEO of Oklo. “Improving state of the art in materials accountability will be a major boost for the deployment of an advanced fuel recycling facility, which will unlock a fundamental shift in the costs of advanced fission,” said DeWitte.
Oklo will partner with Argonne to develop advanced sensor technologies that will enable high-fidelity material accounting. The sensors will be paired with machine learning to enhance facility-wide anomaly detection. These advanced technologies will enhance safeguards and security while also improving process efficiency, which will support the commercialization and licensing of safe and secure fuel recycling facilities.
“Oklo is proud to be partnering with experts at Argonne, who have successfully demonstrated fuel recycling technologies,” said John Hanson, Director of Special Projects at Oklo. “By developing advanced sensor technology and integrating sensor measurements throughout the fuel recycling facility, the entire electrorefining process will be made more secure and efficient. Ultimately, this will significantly reduce the cost of fuel,” added Hanson.
This project is one of several projects that Oklo and Argonne are partnering on in order to provide the foundation for the commercialization of fuel recycling.
