Oklo faces significant hurdles on its road to regulatory approval, though. For one thing,
Aurora is a liquid metal-cooled fast reactor, a design that has been used almost exclusively on submarines. “Frankly, the regulatory paradigm is built for large reactors,” DeWitte says.
While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission works to figure out how small reactors fit in the existing nuclear regulations, other energy policy makers are hyping the technology at every opportunity. Earlier this year, leaders from the US and Europe met for the first high-level international discussions about small modular reactors, and provincial governments in Canada recently met to promote small reactors. And when Rick Perry stepped down as the US Secretary of Energy this month, he gave small modular reactors a special shout-out in his farewell video.
In the US, the push for small reactors has prompted some changes to the regulatory environment to help companies get a first small reactor online at a federal facility by 2027.
But small reactors will still need to prove they can be cost-competitive, says Steve Fetter, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland. With the price of renewables like wind and solar rapidly falling and ample natural gas available, smaller, svelter reactors may never find their niche. Especially if a prime motivator is climate change, whose pace is exceeding that of regulatory approvals.
“I am skeptical of the ability to license advanced nuclear reactors and deploy them on a scale that would make a difference for climate change,” adds Fetter. “But I think it’s worth exploring because they’re a centralized form of carbon-free electricity and we don’t have a lot of those available.” At least in the US, it might be the only way nuclear power gets another chance.
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