Oklo's Groves isotope test reactor reaches first criticality

Oklo

Oklo's Groves Isotope Test Reactor in Lockhart, Texas, reached first criticality, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, less than a year after groundbreaking. It was built under the US Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program and is the program's first reactor to go critical on private land.

• Groves is a low-power test reactor meant to prepare for commercial production of isotopes used in medicine, industry, research, space and defence.
• Oklo built it on a greenfield site and wrote its own operating programs, with DOE and Idaho National Laboratory as partners.
• It is not a power reactor; Oklo's Aurora power plants are separate projects, planned at sites including Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Alaska.