Aurora
Aurora is a liquid metal-cooled reactor design from Oklo Inc. rated at 15 MWe. An application is docketed and under active regulatory review. It requires HALEU fuel.
Worth reading as a cautionary tale about announcement-versus-regulation. Oklo's first combined licence application was **denied** by the NRC in 2022 for insufficient information — the only outright denial in this pipeline. The current application follows a completed pre-application readiness assessment. A company can have many announced sites and still not have a licence.
| Tier | Under review |
|---|---|
| Regulator | US NRC |
| Application type | Combined licence |
| Docket / reference | NRC combined licence application, Aurora-INL |
| Application date | — |
| Review phase | Combined licence application accepted for review |
| Decision expected | not stated |
| Coolant | Liquid metal |
|---|---|
| Reactor family | Fast reactor (FBR) |
| Electrical output | 15MWe |
| Thermal output | not disclosed |
| Fuel | Metallic uranium |
| Enrichment | HALEUUp to 19.75% U-235 |
| First site | Idaho National Laboratory |
| Offtakers | none announced |
This design needs HALEU — uranium enriched above 5% and below 20%. That is not the fuel any commercial Western power reactor uses today, and it is the single most common reason an advanced reactor timeline slips. Every Western facility that can make it or turn it into fuel:
| Facility | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|
| TRISO-X Fuel Facility (TX-1), Oak Ridge | not disclosed | construction |
| American Centrifuge Plant, Piketon | 900kg HALEU/yr | operating |
| Nuclear Fuel Services, Erwin | not disclosed | operating |
| Savannah River Site HEU downblending | 3,100kg HALEU total | operating |
| BWXT TRISO facility, Gillette | not disclosed | planned |
| Urenco Capenhurst HALEU line | not disclosed | planned |
Sources
- US Nuclear Regulatory Commission · retrieved 2026-09-06