The nuclear company Oklo just announced they are going public through a SPAC raising up to 500 million dollars at a market cap of $850 million. The company will have the ticker $OKLO.
This marks another nuclear pureplay investment opportunities for retail investors, and a first for FAST reactors.
FAST reactors are famous as “Waste Burners”, though it’s more like burning up all the fuel, so the notorious waste is more like partly spent fuel.
Oklo’s first reactor is named Aurora, a micro reactor with a 10-year fuel cycle.
An exiting innovation we can expect with Aurora and other FAST reactors is the long awaited “Super Critical CO2 Cycle”. It’s safer, smaller, and more efficient.
Instead of boiling water to spin a turbine with the steam, the turbine is spun with supercritical CO2, and in Oklo’s case – heated by liquid metal.
Supercritical CO2 have higher density and better thermal capabilities than steam, which reduces the annoying heat waste when converting heat to electricity.
It might not be the magical blue one expects when first hearing about nuclear power. But its progress!
(Though supercritical fluids are sort of magic and there is also a post on fluidized solids in the work)
Something that is closer to the magical blue is what the fusion startup Helion is developing. “Directly recover electricity”, involving plasma, magnetic fields, and no turbine.
Another fascinating way to generate electricity without a turbine is Betavoltaic Cells, here electricity is generated directly from radiation by capturing the beta particles / electrons.
Nano Dimond Battery are using this method to develop nuclear batteries that last hundreds of years, to power refrigerators and cars.
And the batteries will be made of and powered by “intermediate-level waste”.
Though the waste waste is the heat waste, and supercritical CO2 system is a near-term solution that addresses that challenge. If you feel called to join the development, there are lots of stuff to do. Here is a link:
https://web.mit.edu/22.33/www/dostal.pdf
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