Oklo to advance Groves 2 Forge isotope facility under DOE Launch Pad

Oklo

Oklo will advance Groves 2 Forge, a pilot plant that would combine reactor irradiation with hot-cell processing to make isotopes, after the US Department of Energy picked it for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad. The DOE's National Reactor Innovation Center selected 12 developers across 13 projects.

• The first product would be lutetium-177, an isotope used in targeted cancer treatments, with other therapeutic isotopes to follow.
• The facility would cover isotope separation, product recovery, packaging and transport, building on the Groves Isotope Test Reactor in Texas.
• Oklo says that test reactor went from greenfield to criticality in under a year, the first Reactor Pilot Program project to do so on private land.
• Commercial-scale output would need US Nuclear Regulatory Commission licences; the announcement gave no dates and no funding amounts.