On Tuesday, Oklo announced they intend to become a publicly traded company by merging with AltC Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who also serves as chairman of Oklo's board. If all goes as planned, Oklo will raise up to $500 million to expand the development of its supply systems and pilot manufacturing facilities by early 2024. When questioned by CNBC, Altman furthered his justification for taking a strong investment stance on energy and AI.
On Tuesday, Oklo, a nuclear fission microreactor startup, declared that it plans to become a publicly-traded company via merging with AltC Acquisition Corp., co-founded by CEO Sam Altman of OpenAI, who is also the chairman of Oklo's board. According to Jake DeWitte, the SPAC's co-founder, the merger should be completed by early 2024, and it is predicted to bring up to $500 million for the firm. The proceeds from the public offering will be utilized for enlarging Oklo's supply chain and procurement operations, plus growing a pilot-scale production plant for its reactor, dubbed Aurora.
Altman is renowned for his efforts in the field of artificial intelligence, with Microsoft investing billions in OpenAI and their ChatGPT chatbot receiving widespread recognition last year. Altman has a firm conviction that a much better future is attainable, and it is dependent on two technologies developing together: AI and energy. As he told CNBC in a phone chat on Friday, “My whole view of things is that the tomorrow can be significantly better, and that the two things we need for that are to lower the cost of energy and intelligence. Once we get those, we’ll be astonished at how much better the future becomes.”
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The two aspects of the future which Altman foresees are closely linked: AI's extensive usage, he told CNBC, will require "a great deal of energy." In 2013 Altman encountered Caroline Cochran and Jacob DeWitte, the co-founders of Oklo, and persuaded them to join Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley start-up incubator, of which he was President from 2014-2019. After Oklo received funding for their Series A investment in 2015, Altman was appointed their Chairman of the Board. “I'm a full believer in energy,” he accentuated to CNBC, “the necessity for huge amounts of affordable, secure and clean energy on a grand scale is urgent.” He has often maintained that access to energy is fundamental for increasing people's standard of living throughout the world. “The alternative to lacking energy is this questionable de-growth idea that people talk about sometimes. We don't want that,” Altman asserted to CNBC, referring to the idea that restriction of production, consumption and energy use is a way of preserving natural resources. “I consider it crazy and somewhat unethical when people advocate it.”
Altman believes nuclear energy is necessary to meet demand while transitioning away from burning fossil fuels which cause global warming. He told CNBC that "I don't see a way for us to get there without nuclear. Maybe we could get there just with solar and storage, but in my opinion, this is the most likely and best way to get there." He has invested $375 million into Helion, which is a startup attempting to replicate nuclear fusion - the way the sun creates energy. Altman believes that both Oklo and Helion can exist side by side since the demand for clean energy is so vast and energy "limited". All in all, he stresses that "we need all of it".
Since 2013, Oklo has been redefining commercial nuclear energy. Construction of conventional nuclear reactors is costly and time-consuming; the infamous budget and schedule overruns of the Vogtle plant in Georgia are a prime example. In contrast, Oklo's smaller reactors have the potential to operate with either fresh or recycled fuel for up to a decade before requiring refueling. This provides a dependable source of energy, unlike the intermittent output of wind and solar. Oklo's services have drawn significant interest - as its CEO recently told CNBC, there is no lack of demand or need for nuclear energy. The company's plans include operating the reactors itself and selling the power to customers, making it easier to use nuclear power without the responsibility of running the reactor. Oklo is currently working toward commercial deployment in Ohio (2030) and Idaho (2027). Approval has been granted for the Idaho plant to use some of the spent nuclear fuel from the Idaho National Laboratory, and Oklo has applied for permission to construct a fuel-recycling facility which would enable them to reuse "used" fuel for their advanced design.
Despite a setback in January 2022 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied Oklo's application to build and operate its advanced nuclear reactor (citing certain information gaps), the company is hopeful it can overcome the issue. According to CEO DeWitte, much of the licensing details are focused on “structural and kind of procedural elements.” If they succeed, Oklo has the potential to make nuclear energy much more affordable, something Altman is excited about. DeWitte attributed this possible cost savings to the reactor's smaller size and intentional design decisions that build on demonstrated technology and use parts already in different industries, thus taking advantage of economies of scale.
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