Episode 155: Caroline Cochran, Co-Founder & COO of Oklo Inc
Today's guest is Caroline Cochran, Co-Founder & COO of Oklo Inc.
Oklo Inc. is working to build powerhouses, advanced fission power plants on a microgrid scale. The team focuses on small advanced reactor generators that are waste and carbon negative. Unlike traditional nuclear power, its technology doesn't require water to cool the system, has vastly different security and safety characteristics, and Oklo can use nuclear waste as fuel. Oklo is revolutionizing nuclear energy to create a clean energy future.
Caroline holds a BS in mechanical engineering and a BA in economics from the University of Oklahoma. She met her co-founder, Jake DeWitte, while studying nuclear engineering in graduate school. After researching nuclear energy's history, Caroline, Jake, and a group of classmates wanted to see advanced fission technology come to fruition. In 2013, Jake and Caroline founded Oklo Inc.
I was excited about this episode because nuclear energy is a fascinating and controversial topic. Caroline walks me through how she and her co-founders started Oklo, the problem it's tackling, and how the company uses recycled nuclear waste to power its facilities. We also dive into nuclear power and where it fits into the clean energy landscape, how nuclear waste has been stored in the past, and why advanced fission is different from traditional nuclear technology. For anyone looking to learn more about nuclear energy, this is a must-listen.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded April 9th, 2021.
In Today's episode we cover:
How Oklo came to be and how the company is revolutionizing nuclear energy
Overview of advanced nuclear and advanced fission
Oklo’s current focus on remote areas with energy poverty and where the company plans to take its solutions into the future
The importance of social license and policy in taking this type of solution to market
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Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ, as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well.
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At any rate, if you want to learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website and click the become a member tab at the top. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone, this is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Today's guest is Caroline Cochran co-founder and chief operating officer of Oklo, where she's leading the team towards building a very small advanced reactor generator that can be waste negative, carbon negative and replace the world's dirtiest and least reliable remote power sources. I was excited for this one as nuclear is such an important topic and one that is subject to much debate.
Advanced nuclear is also a topic that is increasingly important and I was dying to bring Caroline on as one of the leaders in this emerging area to find out what is advanced nuclear, how's it different than traditional nuclear? Where is its trajectory? Within advanced nuclear, what's Oklo's approach? Where are they in their go to market, some of the barriers holding them back, and of course, what some changes could be that would accelerate nuclear power and why it matters and what kind of impact it can have if it is deployed at scale? Great discussion. I hope you enjoy it. Caroline, welcome to the show.
Caroline Cochran: Thanks so much for having me.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks for coming. Oklo, at one point early on in My Climate Journey, I was doing a nuclear tour and discovered Oklo and wanted to get one of you all on the show and for whatever reason, the stars didn't align at that time. But it's such a... and I don't think we ever connected live, but it's such a huge honor to have you on now and, and gosh, such a relevant and timely topic as well, advanced nuclear.
Caroline Cochran: It really is. Yeah. So much has happened in the last year and in general, but also especially here at Oklo. So yeah, it's-it's a great timing to connect with you and I-I really appreciate it.
Jason Jacobs: So usually with guests, I just take it from the top and I ask what is Oklo?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: So that's what I'll do. [Laughs].
Caroline Cochran: Okay, yeah. We are still a small company building, well, we call it advanced fission power plants, then we call them our powerhouses. The first one we proposed is micro grid scale so around one megawatt electric. Um, we have a second one that we're working on that's bigger than that, but still, you know, obviously really small scale and just utilizing that very different size paradigm and a very different technology to illustrate all the ways that you can really basically use the fission reaction, but in a totally different way.
The nuclear has been done in the past so we use different fuel than it's been done currently or in the past, different. We don't require water to cool, we have totally different safety characteristics, different security characteristics, and we're able to use basically nuclear waste as fuel. So we have a lot of different things in there and I-I would say climate is a motivating factor for most of the people on our team.
You know, I guess as far as alternate kind of things that motivate people would also be like humanitarian reasons like getting people clean power, just like having power accessibility to a lot of people around the globe and things like that. But we say climate is a big motivator, so it's-it's cool to be on here and that's-that's what we're working on, what we're doing.
Jason Jacobs: And how, and, and when, and why did this all come to be? What's the origin story for the company?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, I'll dovetail it a little bit with my own, my own background. I'm one of the co-founders of Oklo, but I'd say the beginning of the idea really came from my co-founder Jake DeWitte who basically was born loving nuclear power. [Laughs]. And so a very unique outlook, I think compared to almost everyone.
Jason Jacobs: And where did, where did that come from? I know Jake's not here-
Caroline Cochran: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: You know to talk about it, but-but-but why was he born loving nuclear power?
Caroline Cochran: Yes, I, you know, the-the reason he always gives is that he was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which I think a lot of people are like, "But there's a little... you know, there's a number of people born there that don't just love it." But I think [laughs] who knows? You know, really, um, but you know, from early ages he just loved it. I think he went to the atomic history museum with his dad.
And it is true there's a lot of interesting nuclear and atomic history in New Mexico in general, one of the national labs being there, um, a lot of research in that area, a lot of history, of course, starting with-with weapons, but then transferred into power and, and kind of other types of research in that region. So I guess, you know, he has stories of when he was young playing SimCity and being grumpy that they kind of inaccurately portrayed nuclear power in SimCity and, you know, having little class projects where, you know, it was like design your own RV.
And he, of course he had like a nuclear powered RV and stuff like that. So he's one of those people that just has loved it for a very long time, has a passion for it inside and out, has worked in... you know, he actually did have some experience with looking at weapons, he had some experience looking at the fuel cycle and you know, of course his main passion is, is the power that you can produce from, from the atoms.
So he did nuclear undergrad and grad school where I met him was in grad school. And I know from his time in undergrad, he just thought there are these amazing technologies out there that have honestly been looked at and studied and even demonstrated for decades, but never came to fruition and let's just do something. And [laughs] basically got together a group of grad students like, "Let's do something," and it's kind of that youthful enthusiasm I think really.
I got looped into that. I knew, knew Jake at the time and as well as, you know, other students that kind of being part of this, this little underground group that was like, "What are, what are we going to do?" And it quickly became too many cooks in the kitchen, I'd say. And in fact, like some other, we call them advanced fission startups probably came out of, out of that initial kind of group of people that, that Jake got together.
But, uh, yeah, everyone had their own idea and I think a lot of us kind of disbanded and kind of went back to the drawing board. But out of that came kind of a smaller group of us that came up with concepts that eventually became, you know, Oklo. So, and that was back in 2010. And then yeah, about 2013, we actually got established. How I got into nuclear even ended up in nuclear engineering grad school is, was a much more roundabout than, than Jake's.
I probably like a lot of people, maybe a lot of people listening or but at least a lot of people in general really had no, no exposure to nuclear power or nuclear engineering despite the fact, you know... I mean, I-I was exposed to engineering in general and I grew up, I grew up in Oklahoma where it's very much oil and gas country and I think you know I was a mechanical engineer and I really loved engineering in general, but it wasn't until I did some internships that I got exposed to nuclear power.
And I think my first reactions were kind of like skeptical or it doesn't sound like it's safe. And I like a lot of people didn't know that radiation is natural and that, you know, roughly 20% of US power comes from nuclear power and that is a majority of our clean power. And so I started learning all these things and I was like, "Why haven't I heard of this before?" And so I started my own journey I guess.
But also at the same time in undergrad, this probably date me a little bit, but I-I saw films like Inconvenient Truth and Al Gore came to campus and, you know, started just learning about the world around me and what was going on and, and becoming more and more concerned. So I think there's kind of this confluence throughout my undergrad. And as I was looking at grad school of, you know, what did I want to do? And so it led me...
You know, I first applied to grad school for mechanical engineering, realized when I looked at it, there just weren't the research projects I was excited about. And I started looking again at reapplying to grad school for nuclear and got really excited about the possibilities there, whether it was in healthcare imaging, quantum computing or nuclear power, I was like, or non-proliferation, I was like, "All of these subject areas interest me." And so ended up going towards nuclear engineering at MIT and that's where I met Jake and this whole thing kind of started.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh. And then when it initially came together, what was it about it that drew the team together to mobilize around it? Was there a specific problem that you were excited about solving? Was there a gap that you saw on the market? Was it applying technology that existed and kind of like... I don't want to, I feel like I'm lea-leading, that I'm turning this into a leading question, which I didn't, I didn't intend for it to be, but what, what was it that was there kind of an aha or so-some rallying cry that banded you together?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah. At the time, you know, I don't even know if anyone's really asked us that question 'cause it's just like, oh, well of course you do something and then come up with an idea and just think it's cool and want to pursue it. But at the time when we first got a bunch of people together, the idea really was let's figure out how to consume waste and turn it into energy. And so there's just this whole question of like, let's deal with nuclear waste and utilize these technologies to create power from it. So it's kind of a twofold, I guess, goal.
And so, yeah, I think that was more or less the rallying cry. But it's a tough problem to, to track because as it stands now, all of the used nuclear fuel which everyone calls waste, it sits around at, you know, in storage, in appropriate storage at the various nuclear plants around the country and all the utilities that have those plants have paid a fee into the U-US government to take care of that waste. And it was part of the US government's kind of mandate is, was to take that over and to ultimately store it. But the US government never actually did that. And so-
Jason Jacobs: Are you talking about Yucca Mountain?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, so, I mean, Yucca would have been one of, one of the ways the US government could have dealt with it, but yeah, ultimately they were supposed to take responsibility for the waste, whatever they're going to do after that. So technically it would be owned by the US government, but it's a liability that exists for everyone in essence, it's something that has to be stored and kind of maintained and, and watched out for.
And it's like, look, you know, while this is both a, uh, I'd say burning policy question, you know, a lot of people are concerned, and maybe one could argue whether or not that's one of the biggest concerns people should have in the face of, of so many huge concerns in the world. But at the same time, that's a big concern for a lot of people, it's not being dealt with and there's so much value in it and we can turn it into electricity like emission free electricity.
So I think that was just kind of what, what brought this all together and, and something in particular that we-we've kind of formed under that idea of what to do with that. Out of that came kind of just starting an advanced fission company, which we had some serendipitous early interactions with random people. We were trying to make some money at the time, you know, grad students running out of room in our house and one of our first guests was actually, uh, some people from Alaska and they were talking about the energy situations there.
And then I ended up chatting with some friends that ended up in oil and gas and they were like, "Yeah, there's things that we can't even do because we can't even get energy to those areas. And if you had like a power plant where you wouldn't have to transport diesel back and forth, if you had power in certain areas, you could do things that they can't do now." And so it was, we came face-to-face with the fact that there is energy poverty inside the United States like for instance, in areas of Alaska.
There are climate refugees right now in Alaska and various places and learning about even just like other forms of energy can't get to certain areas. And so I think we started looking at there's an immediate market need in this very small space so the very small power reactor. So we kind of looked from that sense, there's a market need for these, and yes, we want to get to consuming waste, but that seems like a much bigger problem that we'll have to address after we've built our first few plants and gotten some more, you know, some actual working capital and, and then address that problem.
But the interesting thing is how that's coalesced so that our very first plant is actually going to be powered off of recycled waste. And we're already starting to look at investments in how we kind of make this whole infrastructure ourselves. So it seemed like such a huge intractable problem for such a small company, but now it's coming together as one of the first things we plan to do, you know, earlier in the company than, than I think we originally thought.
So it's interesting to look back, I guess and see how our initial founding kind of ideas we kind of felt like we drifted, I think, but have come back full circle right away to that being essential. Not just, not just solving a huge issue for the power sources as a topic like nuclear power as a question, but also, you know, actually improving the economics so that we can provide power at a more affordable rates. It's interesting how it all comes back around, I guess.
Jason Jacobs: And in terms of advanced nuclear, so my sense is that if you just look at the, the general public, they don't necessarily distinguish between advanced nuclear and nuclear.
Caroline Cochran: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Jason Jacobs: And, and they also don't necessarily distinguish between fission and fusion. So it's a layman question, but can you just talk a bit about advanced nuclear and where it fits in?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah. I use the term advanced fission frequently because for one, in advanced nuclear, there's both fission and fusion and both are really exciting.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Caroline Cochran: But also to distinguish from existing nuclear, which I think most people, if you started saying, well, they use what's called light-water and here's what light reactor means and typically they're this size and they have these safety characteristics and then we're non light-water reactor and here's what our fuel looks like. So it's just kind of a term that kind of groups in all these different non light-water reactor technologies that all fit in this advanced fission bucket.
And so there's various technologies being thought about, and that's, that's why we use that terminology. But you're right, a lot of times people don't distinguish ultimately at the end of the day, you're using fission generally. I mean, fusion's not currently being used to produce power and it will be sometime before it does.
And so, yeah, I think in a sense it's all nuclear power and some of the same issues carry through between existing plants and, and what we're looking at in advanced fission, but in a sense i-it should be distinguished. So that's kind of the terminology. I don't know if I'm answering the question well, but there's just such big differences and I-I'd love to go through that, but I don't know if that would be for the next question.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I mean, so if we, if we then zero in on advanced fission as you call it, when people talk about... So I'm no, I was going to say nuclear, but I'll say fission instead.
Caroline Cochran: Sure.
Jason Jacobs: They talk about, well, you know what about the waste? They talk about what about security and proliferation?
Caroline Cochran: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Jason Jacobs: They talk about costs and how you know can we build big things anymore? And then we can't get the economics to work, they talk about social license. But I-I guess before we hit on those, my question for you is I get that it's all fission, but is it, are they the same sport or should it really be decoupled, the big light-water reactors from advanced fission? And is advanced fission really its own unique category that should almost be just kind of separate and distinct?
Caroline Cochran: Mm-hmm [affirmative].
Jason Jacobs: When you go through and address these, these line items or, or are there parallels and it's, and is it all like, you know, it's like sport bikes and cruisers for motorcycles, right? Like, well, well they're all motorcycles, but it's a fundamentally different riding experience, right?
Caroline Cochran: Uh-huh.
Jason Jacobs: And, and how should we think about advanced fission?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, man, there's so much packed in there. I'll try to address it best I can. I think man, yeah. So I think your analogy is actually fairly apt. You know, there's kind of this overarching category and then there's kind of, I think they should basically be divided in a sense like existing plants and, and the way things have been done for decades and wh-what is new and what's being proposed to be done moving forward, I'd say is fundamentally different and has been very separate in its development in a sense, and also pretty much every aspect about it.
So I think I started to kind of mention, but you know, using different fuel, different coolant, different energy spectrum, different size ranges, different load forming characteristics and different waste characteristics, all of those are things that differentiate. And so in a sense, it's almost like you do just need to be totally, look at totally separately. But in the same sense, it's like, you know, the fundamental characteristics are still the same.
Fission as an energy source produces an incredible amount of energy per reaction. And that's what makes it a worthwhile thing to pursue, right? And that's whether it's a large wa, light-water reactor, historical, you know, maybe even a 40-year-old plant, they might still have 40 years of life left in them, they still have great safety characteristics. One of the slides I often start off with, depending on the audiences I have like this slide of like comparing like a Tesla Roadster with like a, a vintage car.
Like you can have good safety with it, retrofit it with all the seat belts. It's fundamentally not built from the ground up in a different way like a Tesla is, it's not got electric motors, it uses a different field type. It maybe has different safety characteristics and so forth but you know, like they're both cars. So I guess that's an analogy I-I often give. So maybe it's similar to your motorcycle analogy, but yeah, I think that's how I think of it. Maybe it's because I, I did cars in undergrad, but I think that's maybe a way, a way to think about it and, and how they should be kind of differentiated.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh. And so when you talk about our future energy mix and there's renewables and there's coal and there's natural gas and there's some big light-water reactors and fusion and advanced fission and whatever else I'm missing, how much do you think about the overall mix and what that should be versus just specifically kind of laser focused on advanced fission and helping it reach the promise land, get as big as possible, as fast as possible, play a bigger role as it possibly can?
Caroline Cochran: I guess I don't view, this is me personally speaking, I don't view it as like a zero sum game in-in a sense, because energy is just the biggest market in the world by far, when you talk about trillions of dollars a year being spent in energy broadly, and even, even in an electricity if you're just like that segment that out from energy, it's an incredible market, right? And so there's room for so much.
And when we think about the big picture of climate and what actually makes a dent, it's going to take so much of everything, right? All the above. I do think it's almost like on a micro level that that changes instead of the macro, you know, what do we need as a whole planet? But where we feel like we can fit in as you know, obviously addressing a market that currently doesn't have really a great alternative.
For instance, I was talking about Alaska earlier. There's just not, you know, they've, in the winter time, solar is really just not a great option until storage gets to a certain place, natural gas isn't an option for them up there because of the way the pipelines look, even diesel is extremely costly, but also obviously very dirty to transport in to some of these more remote areas. And so we're focused on a market that currently doesn't have another solution really.
And so in that sense, it's very easy not to worry too much about, uh, considering competitiveness or that there's some zero sum game where it's either going to be this or that. I kind of, I have maybe a rose colored glasses, but I think there's a lot of room for a lot of things and the best, best solutions will end up pointing out. I do feel like fundamentally we're working on this problem because you know, the amount of materials that you need to produce a megawatt hour of electricity from fission is just dwarfed by everything else.
So the material requirements for everything else is just so much higher. And that's whether you're looking at renewables or fossil fuels and so forth. Of course, fossil is actually dwarf even again, like if you're looking at the chart, it's like a log chart of like fossils are off the charts as far as materials, you know, and mostly the fuel and then there's renewables and then even still there's like nuclear.
And then if you look at advanced nuclear, which we're expecting to recycle the fuel and have this almost like a renewable looking paradigm, even fewer. So if you want to look at total life cycle carbon for footprint, to me, that's maybe the ultimate measure of what's most efficient to provide clean power to the globe. And the globe is not looking to cut their resource usage anytime soon. As soon as people get a little wealthier, they consume more and that's just what's happened.
So we can try to say, is that right, is that wrong? And I think we could pontificate on that, but ultimately we're seeing a lot of wealth being generated, a lot of countries coming out of severe poverty and I think overall, we're happy about that, right? Like we want people to have that, that access. And so how are they going to get that access? And I think we want to optimize towards the thing that has the lowest life cycle carbon footprint, and it's fairly obvious to me that that's nuclear even without storage.
And so once you factor storage and renewables, even look a little bit higher. And so... you know, but I think again, when you look at the micro level, each community is going to have its own solutions that make the most sense to it. I think on a global level, I think we're going to have to move much, much more toward fission, both in terms of cost, but in terms of climate. So I think that's how I view it.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh. And when you think about the go to market for Oklo, you mentioned starting in these remote areas with energy poverty where they don't have solutions today.
Caroline Cochran: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: How do you think about the future? Is that a beachhead market and then you'll expand from there? And if so, how do you think about timelines and, and where else you would go or, or do you think that that market is big enough that you could be focused on it for as far as the eye can see?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah. I think it's a market that has a need now that we can easily in our early units already start saving them money. So our model is to build, own and operate ourselves. So like we're not saying try to sell a plant to community and it's like, okay, well you're on your own operating it and all the costs of building it and stuff. We signed power purchases so if the power purchase doesn't make sense to the community, they're not going to do it.
So in a sense for us to make sense for them, generally, what they're looking for is like a lot of areas do want a cleaner grid, so that's an aspect, but it does often come down to cost, right? And so if we can offer clean power at the same rate or cheaper than they're currently paying, that's a huge motivator. So in these areas, it's easy for us to save them even significantly on their electricity costs while upgrading their grid.
So that's kind of like, yeah, that's why we focused on as a first market, but we by no means see it as, as the last. That alone, those kinds of micro grid markets that we can really save electricity on, generally currently consuming a lot of diesel, there's lots of that. Actually we'd be, you know, a very successful company already with that.
But I think what we see is that very quickly, you know, you do your first several and you can, you can start to have almost like the Gigafactory or something and, and start making more efficient small plants that then start to make more and more sense as almost like a distribute grid model or even kind of tap into other things like, you know, data centers obviously use a lot of power, they need reliable power.
I've had some interesting conversations recently as far as crypto and power usage, but you know, just even just communities. And, and I think the overall movement of the grid, maybe especially in the United States, but all over the world even is instead of building these huge, huge plants outside of cities and just kind of integrating those, I think we're seeing more and more moves toward a de-centralized grid.
And I think that's beneficial in a lot of ways, as long as the economics work out, as far as having more resiliency and less reliability. You only have one single plant working, you can have a lot more distributed power plants. Here in California where we're based, you know, you see that with the, with the fires where a whole swath of California might have to be, their power might have to be shut off based on fire risk in a certain smaller region.
And it might be easier to basically... I think overall the grid is moving toward that resilience and that more distributed look. And I think that's, that's just a broad trend regardless of what we're doing, but I think that's something that we eventually see tapping into and kind of being a part of.
Jason Jacobs: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. And a couple of distinct questions. One is just, can you talk a bit about the Oklo solution and what makes it special? And then second, it'd be great to just understand a little better what the key phases are as you think about go-to-market and where you are today.
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, yeah absolutely. Yeah, I would say so maybe first and foremost, our view on being... owning and operating ourselves, instead of trying to just, I think there's been this historic trend where it's like, there's a nuclear engineer who thinks this one technology is just the coolest thing, so someone should want to buy it. And so it's almost more like technology first instead of customer first and what does the market actually want?
And then what they would do with that technology is say, "Well, this is really cool, the government should fund it," and make the argument that they need more government dollars. And I think proving out at Oklo is that it's really, it should be about what people actually want and need and developing plants that supply that instead of kind of trying to push a technology and try to get as much government dollars as you can.
And I think because we have that view and we look at the plant's operating costs and lifetime holistically and not just like, okay, what are my development costs? How can I get the government to give me all those development costs? And then maybe I can sell it off to utility who then owns it from there on out. We actually think about what is the security of the plant? What is the safety of the plant? What is the reliability?
We care about that all the way through the life cycle, right? 'Cause we're owning that. And I think we're taking, because of that, a very holistic view on how can we have the most inherent safety, the most inherent security, not just for like feel good vibes, but also because ultimately that's, that's a good thing for us, that's a good thing for our customers. And so how do we utilize that? How do we lean on that and utilize that to basically make more efficient the things that have not been efficient in the past?
So you look at existing plants and they have incredible operating staff's requirements, they have incredible security requirements and that's because of certain vulnerabilities or difficulties. But if we have inherent safety and inherent security, we don't have to have a lot of those costs. And so turning that cost paradigm upside down is a, is a big part of what we're doing and that has to start with a regulator.
For anyone who's looked at this space a little bit, they'll have seen complaints that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which is the federal regulator in the United States at least is a reason for nuclear being very expensive and slow and all those things. I think there's a degree of truth to that, but there's also a degree where the industry itself has, has not optimized things and not put forward better strategies instead of just saying, "Oh, we'll slap another security guard, oh, we'll put another fence outside of that existing fence."
And I'm not kidding you, I've been to a power plant and they're like, "Okay, well we have the summit wall, but we're also going to put a chain link fence six inches outside of that." [Laughs] And it's like, you know, I, just the logic is, is kind of escaping. And I think it's just a very, it's just hard to describe how kind of backwards looking and, and outdated and kind of isolated from the real world that this industry is.
I often give one example, is that literally right now at a US nuclear power plant, they don't use digital controls. So people worry sometimes about hackers getting into a nuclear power plant, they use analog. So like every other industry was using what, about 50 years ago. So that in itself creates, I think its unsafety hazards and a cost issues because they're having to source special parts that aren't even being made anymore just to kind of keep that analog situation up 'cause they're not even willing...
And utilities are of course, very risk averse so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And so that's kind of the mentality of this whole industry, is just very backwards looking. So your original question was what are we doing differently like what's our goal? And I think we take... our business model looks different, our outlook looks different. We take things on that others haven't taken on. We want to look at it in a very different, different way.
And so part of that is this regulatory pathway. And, and so so far we, we engage with the regulator and historically in this advanced fission space, people would say, "Oh, it's a race to be second with the regulator because the regulator's never, never done an application with these kinds of new technologies, they've only ever done these large light-water reactors. So who knows how they'll deal with it? They can't deal with it. We're going to have to get Congress to force them to deal with it."
And we're like, "Actually we think they can, they say they can, let's just start talking." So years ago, Oklo was, was basically the first to really start formally, what we call formally engaging with the NRC and then, you know, went from there to doing a pilot application and then our final application, which we di, submitted actually last year and it was accepted for review and, and now we're one year into what is a three-year process for that license.
And so at the end of those three years, you know, we'll have a license barring unforeseen circumstances. Generally the NRC doesn't accept applications that they can't get to yes on. The yes might depend on a whole bunch of variables and making sure that, you know, you add certain belts and suspenders and, and have all these reviews, but you can get to yes, it's just a question of, you know, going through that process and, and making sure you, you meet all those requirements.
So we're just taking it on, we're moving forward, we've done everything different. We-we've shown that it can be done in a cost-effective way and so we're just working through that. The application we submitted was like 1/100th the length of prior applications and we've done it on about that much less of, of cost than other, other applicants.
So when people are out there saying it has to cost billions of dollars or so forth, mostly that's an argument to try to get government money on that order of magnitude more so than I think reflects reality. But it does take a very different look. And I think we've been able to just kind of look at it very differently and take a different path. So sorry, I felt like that was a really long answer to your question, but it's hard to summarize, I guess.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, no kind of nu-nuclear is hard.
Caroline Cochran: [Laughs].
Jason Jacobs: There's nuances a lot to it.
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, yeah.
Jason Jacobs: But in terms of, in terms of that approval, while you're waiting on that approval, what else needs to happen between now and then to prepare so that once you presumably get that approval, you can hit the ground running?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah. Yes. So all during this period of time with this review, it's, it's just an ongoing engagement, right? So we're having meetings, we're trying on reports and, and so forth. And we obviously a lot of that was in our initial application, but you still kind of have these audits and kind of additional interactions all the way through. So we're, we're doing that actively.
And in fact, the licenses to operate that we can technically begin some amount of fabrication that doesn't have to do with things that the regulator has to oversee. So generally that's a lot of what's-what's called safety related. And that, that sounds like what it says to the average person, but there's like a specific designation of how you define something as safety related or not, and so forth.
So tightly we're, we have been, but are still in the process of building up supply chain and all kinds of things so it's a busy, busy few years getting ready for that time. And then once we get that license, we'd start not just like fabricating parts, but actually constructing and doing pre operational testing and startup testing and so forth before we actually start it up. So yeah, it's definitely a busy time, but it's, it's kind of exciting looking at the whole supply chain side of it too.
Jason Jacobs: And correct me if I'm wrong, but given that it sounds like so much of the work that you're doing is around blueprints and coming up with plans and approvals and, and things like that, as a young company, what does that mean in terms of staffing and team composition? Uh, how big are you today from a team standpoint and what types of skill sets does one require for a company that's in the phase that you're in doing what you're doing?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah. Well, first of all, you know, I think it's important, you know, on one hand it's like, well, you're building a nuclear power plant, that must require hundreds of people and all this stuff. And yet, you know, the very first power plant, which we sometimes look at that we, it was built on a similar concept with this, this type of fuel, you know, 20 people basically designed it and built it.
So, and nowadays with computers and everything, you can really automate so much, you can do so much analysis that, you know, they're doing slide rules, you know, that they didn't really have calculators to a great degree. So, you know, I think there's a lot of efficiencies to be had where you're able to use AI and kind of sophisticated digital twinning to really go through a lot of scenarios. So we can do things much more efficiently than were done before utilizing the data from what was done before.
So we have physical hard data and 30 years worth of testing of this exact kind of field that we're using. So it's not just all in a computer, it's, it's based on reality. So you can do it really efficiently. So we got to that place of submitting our application, honestly roughly a team of between 10 and 15 through the years. Now we're about 25, and again, we're talking about one megawatt scale plant that's in a building of about the size of a large house so like 4,000 square feet or so.
So in a sense you don't need huge teams to do that, but at the same time, we partner with a lot of partners that have experience with, you know, setting up power plants and integrating with the grid. And so it's, you know, obviously it's not me and our team, you know, digging ditches or hooking up power lines and so forth. So we're developing all those kinds of relationships.
And the, the team doesn't have to be a lot larger to get to this first of a kind, but certainly we're growing really quickly to support not only this but kind of our next of a kind and, and, and so forth and so many other things that you have to do to really step up for. So, yeah, we're about 25 right now, but we're growing fast.
Jason Jacobs: Two distinct questions. I don't know why I tend to ask questions in twos, but rather than fight it, I'll just-
Caroline Cochran: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: Lean into it since it seems to be what happens anyways. But one is around how important social license is to take this type of solution to market and then the other is how important is policy.
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, both are of course really important and they're important to us. And I think one of the things that allows us to really engaging with the community in a very different way and one of the things I've been talking about with others in this space and outside of this space is, you know, because we are built on operating, we would do PBAs with communities, they are able to effectively opt in or you know, choose this solution or not.
And I think in a more traditional utility model, there's a big utility, maybe they're regulated not, but for a state and they're like, "We want to build this power plant. We want to build it here." And so the citizens of that community are like, "Whoa, wait, we don't want this." Or maybe they do or whatever. Maybe some would want them for the jobs, maybe some who don't want it because they don't want the traffic or the pollution or the coal or whatever barreling through their area.
And so I think one being a much smaller size enables that of itself, but also the business model enables that. So we're excited. Like that's one of the things I genuinely enjoy and the people on our team are excited about, is just like interacting with the community and seeing what they want and need and how we can meet that solution.
And I think, you know, it's just fun also to think about, like for instance in, in various communities in Alaska, like, what do you need on top of electricity, right? Like, oh, well, you know, it's cold and dark here for a lot of the year. And honestly, people don't get a lot of exercise. A swimming pool would be insane, like an indoor swimming pool, or like, you know, could we couple this power plant with like a hotel or some kind of conference area, or even just like a coffee shop or things that we kind of take for granted, I think in most, most areas, but in some of these remote areas, it's really exciting to think about that.
How does that scale? I think it could be another question, but it's, I think one of our goals is to be a part of a community's clean energy grid such that they're like, "Yeah, here's our solar panel," or, "Here's our wind turbines and here's, there's our [inaudible 00:38:19]," and just something that is a point of pride. And so we try to design a building that's both kind of iconic.
Like our powerhouse building is hopefully both iconic, but also incorporates solar panels on it. And then the solar panels themselves serve like a, a canvas for local art. And I know all of that sounds probably kind of phoo-phoo, but it's both functional and I think it gives a way for, for communities to feel like they own something that's nearby that's producing the power that they can feel proud of.
And so one of the teams that we're, we're also in the, uh, MIT clean energy prize back when we did it very long time ago was Sistine Solar, and that's part of what they do is these kinds of SolarSkins. And granted it does reduce efficiency, but I think it's really neat to have the idea of, we can use those SolarSkins to have community sourced art on the building, have the building be thoughtfully designed, have the surrounding area.
So we really wanted to ensure that the safety was such that we don't have to have like a large fenced off area that the public can go into, literally the, the building is itself our site boundary and people can come in, they could potentially use the lobby area for various reasons, or we've thought about having like a coffee shop in there and so forth. And that just flips all traditional, especially nuclear power, but I think honestly, most power plants in general kind of on its head, is what we don't plan to have a large fenced area where no one can go.
It's-it's kind of very open, wildlife can go through the area. And I think all of that's important to that, that social license you're talking about. As to the second question of policy, we try to really focus on a design that can be built based on data and technology exists today. And we're not reliant on, yeah, I know I mentioned it, but government dollars. So policy in terms of, of government programs to hand out funds, but also no changes really required of the regulatory structure before we could really get started and so forth.
So we try to really focus on things that do not require necessarily government intervention for it to happen. But the same time, policy is very exciting in the sense that it's very... advanced fission is very bi-partisan right now, like outrageously so. It might be one of very few topics that both sides will get together or almost compete to get together on bills for.
So it's, it's been amazing kind of the activity in that area. It's almost, I'd say almost problematic because I think people are so interested in helping or putting their name on to something that helps this area. People on the left because of climate and environment and all these things and people on the right because of all the reasons they've kind of always enjoyed nuclear power traditionally, which was, you know, like national security and American excellence and so forth.
So I think you see this kind of confluence where both sides really care about it. So I think on the policy side, it's an exciting time and it's an interesting time to see all that confluence of kind of sentiment. I would say broadly, we recognize that public sentiment around nuclear power has generally been favorable in the United States, but I think still fairly skeptical.
But I think one of the things that's interesting is there, I think the word is getting out about you can have nuclear power, but also do in a completely different way than it was done before for those who are concerned about how it's done but also people are maybe just generally getting better educated about the actual safety profile of existing plants. And, and I think the climate imperative is becoming such that, you know, all sources have to be viewed in these shades of gray.
Everything's kind of a compromise. Do you wanna use more materials, have less materials? Do you want to have nuclear power or not? And, you know, fossil's obviously been one of the biggest detriments, you know, every seven seconds someone's potentially dying in the world today because of, through the pollution. So I think that's more of the imperative now than I think people's fears, which dominated in the past as far as nuclear power.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh. And what about sources of capital? So what sources either dilutive or, or non-dilutive has Oklo worked with so far and, and also just what are your recommendations for other similar types of companies in terms of what the best sources of capital are to take the companies through these different phases of [inaudible 00:42:36]?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, it's such an interesting, just really fascinating time. I think even since we got started in the last, just couple of years, capital in a way capital looks at things is very different. We did Y Combinator in 2014 and that was the first year that Sam Altman headed, uh, Y Combinator. But he also brought in what was then their first, what they called hard tech batches. So it wasn't apps and software, but also like fission, fusion, different you know, kind of there's like genetic testing and all kinds of things so very different out there kind of technologies being looked at.
And I think at the time, the only real model for that was like Tesla and SpaceX did well. And some people were like, "Oh, well maybe we should invest in hard tech." And I think that's really matured over the years, is this interest in what they've been calling hard tech. Clean tech had a little bit of a bubble and a little bit of a burst there in the early mid 2000s. I think it's come full circle and I think there's so much interest in, I guess I'd say proven, but I'd also say there's surprising interest in things that are, are even further from reality, from venture capital than I think there used to be.
So it used to be the argument was a venture capital wouldn't want to invest in anything that would take years that's too long of a life cycle for a venture to be interested in it. And I think now they're taking a very different look and there is more patient capital, there is more interest. And so overall just, I think there's so much more investment in clean tech, hard tech, fission than there ever was ever in, in the past. So it's-it's an exciting time.
And I think, you know, we've both been the beneficiary of it, but maybe this tip of the spear on it as far as fission's concerned because we were the first fission company that raised kind of a more traditional venture led series A here in the United States. And so it was interesting because, you know, how do they do due diligence and they don't really have that set up and there's no real community of investors that all specialize in this type of investing and those kinds of network effects there?
But now you're starting to see it. They did with us, they've done it with others. And, and, you know, as we look forward, I think it gets easier from that point onward than it was for our first round. And so I think, I think it's an exciting time. And just like it's bi-partisan, I think there's, there's such an array of investors that are interested. I'd say early on, our, most of our investors were kind of personal investments of high net worth people who really care about climate and see nuclear as part of the solution.
And then I think as it goes along and people are starting to see more dollar signs, there's more market viability. It brings in more investors that aren't just kind of more ESG or more kind of motivated just by climate and less so by dollars, they're also motivated by more traditional models. So I think it's becoming more and more broad the set of investors that are willing to look at, look at fission and maybe just clean tech more broadly.
Jason Jacobs: And what about non-dilutive capital? Is that something that you've worked with at all, grants?
Caroline Cochran: Well, no, not really. We haven't received any, any government funding. I will say that though that, or even, you know, we, we looked at taking non-dilutive funding from like foundations and so forth. But oftentimes when it comes down to it, they kind of don't invest in the same kind of way as investors. And so when it came down to having lead investors and people falling on, we just didn't see the kind of interest that we thought that there might be from foundations.
So, and then pretty quickly you get to, to round sizes that are just too large for foundations to be super interested in playing in. So I don't know if I could categorically say we haven't received any, but I don't think that we have. But yeah, as far as like government funding too in grants in that way, what we've seen is that a lot of times the stipulations required actually increase our costs so much that it actually doesn't make up for the cost share that they're requiring and all the stipulations they require.
So we see it as potentially slowing down and as long as there's investors interested, uh, it just really hasn't been a great route for us to go down. But I know there have been other companies that for them that that was, that was a good way to go.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh. Great. And, and if Oklo is successful beyond your wildest dreams, what have you achieved?
Caroline Cochran: Oh my gosh, well, yeah, our goal with this, and I think so many people are like, "Well, you're just working on a, a micro reactor. That can't solve climate change." But our bigger goal is really to change how these are licensed and regulated and fundamentally put forth a new safety and security paradigm so that you can really be efficient with how you deploy them and reduce costs and bring them forward.
So we could have plants of all different technologies and types out there providing clean power and maybe in tiny micro grids, maybe in maybe bigger plants. And so I don't know, the sky's the limit and we could... I'm just really excited about how, how much more quickly maybe even that can come to be than-than maybe we were initially thinking. It's, it's you start with something small to really prove out a, a case where you can, if you do it elegantly, it should extend to other plants with similar safety and security characteristics.
So we're really excited about what the future looks like. The craziest scenarios, like, you know, the existing nuclear waste in the United States could power the United States for a thousand years with clean power like if it was all just fission. And so I think the sky is really the limit that you could really have by far the lowest carbon footprint way of supplying nearly limitless clean power to people. So it's pretty exciting to me.
Jason Jacobs: And for anyone listening that's inspired, where do you need help? Who do you want to hear from?
Caroline Cochran: Oh man. So we have not so far done a whole lot in the way of job postings because literally it's been interesting just to s... Job postings almost filter out people because it's, you maybe it's for a specific role needing specific, you know, education or, or skills or experience. But what we've seen is people just reach out and they're like, "I'm so excited. I've been following you, I'm interested." And so people from all walks have reached out and I'd say we don't turn it down.
It's really interesting to see who reaches out and what skillsets they have because we have so many needs and we're growing so much that I wouldn't say, oh, we only need people in this area or that area. Honestly, maybe paradoxically, maybe the thing we need the least is nu, more nuclear engineers, [laughs] because that's a small part of the plant. If you think about it, we need mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and industrial, we also need business folks and sales, people who love sales.
We need people in government relations and regulations. And so there's so many different subject areas that we need help in. I'd love to see it. I will say we are shortly putting up an actual careers page with like an open call as well as more specific calls for, for needs that we have immediately and very specifically. But yeah, so we, I'd direct them there. Eventually they'll be linked to our website, but for now you can email and makestuff@oklo.com and just let us know who you are and what your interest is. That'd be awesome.
Jason Jacobs: Great. And is there anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners?
Caroline Cochran: Yeah, I think, I think we hit on almost everything. I think my last final words about like just the promise is, is huge to us and, and it's not just theoretical, like these kinds of plants have been tested in the past but also we're literally doing it right now and the timeline is much shorter than people think. We're just a couple of years away from the first ones going on the grid. And, and I think I just wanna impress on people that it's coming, it's now and it's, it's exciting. So happy to chat or answer any other further questions.
Jason Jacobs: Awesome. Well, Caroline, this was so great.
Caroline Cochran: Thank you.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks again for making the time.
Caroline Cochran: Yeah.
Jason Jacobs: And coming on the show and best of luck to you and the whole Oklo team.
Caroline Cochran: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note that is .co not .com. Someday, we'll get the .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers may be say that, thank you.
