Earnings Labs

Oklo Inc. (OKLO)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 11, 2025

$69.81

-8.07%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Tina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Oklo Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Call. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Sam Doane

Management

Good afternoon, and thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, to Oklo's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings and Company Update Call. I'm Sam Doane, Oklo's Director of Investor Relations. Joining me today are Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; and Craig Bealmear, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's accompanying slide presentation is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion, including our prepared remarks and the Q&A session that follows, will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views regarding trends, assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review the forward-looking statements disclosure included in our supplemental slides. Additional information on relevant risk factors can also be found in our most recent filings with the SEC. Please note that Oklo assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jake Dewitte, Oklo's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Jake?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Thanks, Sam. The first half of this year brought an incredible wave of momentum across the advanced nuclear sector from new federal programs and executive actions to growing customer and investor interest in clean, reliable power. That momentum has continued into the third quarter and is creating a very different environment for deployment than even a year ago. We strongly believe Oklo is uniquely positioned to thrive in this environment. Our mission at Oklo continues to be focused and clear. To deliver clean, reliable, affordable energy at a global scale. We started this company with the belief that Advanced Nuclear Power could play a transformative role in the world's energy future. That meant rethinking everything? Are we design reactors, how we license and feel them and how we operate them and engage customers. That same vision continues to guide us today and it remains fully aligned with where we believe policy, technology and customer demand are headed. Our competitive advantages come from the intersection of several core strategies. Our business model, our scalable design and our proven technology. First, our build-own-operate model allows us to sell power directly to customers under long-term contracts. That creates recurring revenue and streamlines the regulatory process by keeping ownership and operational control within Oklo. Second, our small scalable design means we can deploy assets quickly and incrementally, matching customer demand while leveraging existing industrial supply chains and factory fabrication. That reduces on-site construction risk, lowers cost and supports faster rollout. And third, our liquid metal [ stadium ] cool technology is built on a foundation of more than 400 combined reactor years of operating experience worldwide, including the experimental [ breeder reactor 2 ], which operated successfully for 3 decades in the United States. That operating record is one of the most tested, demonstrated…

Richard Bealmear

Management

Thanks, Jake. As Jake mentioned, Oklo is leading the advanced nuclear effort here in the United States but we are also experiencing growing international momentum around fast reactors and metal fuel technology. This quarter, we signed new transatlantic partnerships with Blykalla and newcleo, 2 European companies advancing fast reactor and fuel fabrication technologies. These collaborations strengthen our supply chain strategies, expand our technology base and align with broader trends across both the United States and Europe for a renewed commitment to nuclear innovation, manufacturing and partnership. With Blykalla, we entered into a joint technology development agreement to collaborate in key areas where there's mutual benefit such as balance of plant components, regulatory learnings and fuel strategy. We also co-led their recent funding round building across Atlantic partnership that benefits both companies. With newcleo, we've launched a strategic partnership to develop advanced fuel fabrication and manufacturing infrastructure in the United States under domestic oversight. Newcleo could invest up to $2 billion through an affiliated vehicle to expand U.S. capacity and support our metal fuel platform. Taken together, these collaborations represent the next step in Oklo's evolution and could help us accelerate cost reduction, leverage international capital and extend our reach into markets where demand for advanced nuclear power is growing rapidly. Oklo is combining proven fast reactor technology with a global ecosystem of partners suppliers and investors who are equally focused on delivering scalable, zero-carbon baseload power. I'll now provide a summary of our financials. Oklo's third quarter operating loss was $36.3 million, inclusive of noncash stock-based compensation expense of $9.1 million. Oklo's loss before income taxes in the third quarter was $29.2 million, which reflects our operating loss adjusted for net interest income of $7.1 million. On a year-to-date basis, when adjusting for noncash stock-based compensation charges, changes to working…

Operator

Operator

We are now ready to take questions. Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley.

Ryan Pfingst

Analyst

Just want to make sure I'm clear on the DOE authorization. Does the INL plant shifting to the DOE pathway, change your requirement to submit a [ cola ] with the NRC for that project? Or is that something you still have to do? And has the government shut down impacted your ability to do that at all?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Thanks for the question. I think -- so yes, we no longer need to do a [ colo ], right? So we're going through the DOE authorization process, which is inherently quite different. So we don't have to do that anymore. At the end of the day, to build. At the end of the day, we'll still do some kind of combined license type application to the NRC, Part of it is being a little bit redefined and developed based on even just this MOU signed between the NRC and DOE, which was a pretty big deal just last week or the week before. It sets the stage for how the facility would then become a commercial operating NRC license plans at some point after we get through some of the initial startup and operational kind of frame or [indiscernible] paradigm, I should say. But yes, now it's just through a different DOE process. What's huge about this, is this -- this is a muscle that if you think about it, there's 3 major agencies have, right, to do nuclear authorization on permitting. Obviously, the NRC then the Department of Energy and then the Department of War. And those 3 agencies have those abilities. DOE and DOW haven't really used those very much recently, but they have that history. And so they are like they've used them and they do have continued oversight of the programs, but they're using them now a lot more. And this, by the way, wasn't just something that happened overnight. Like this goes back to the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act, NEICA that was passed into law in 2018 that's at the stage of this. It was just following the executive orders that really supercharge this effort. And DOE has really leaned into it, and…

Ryan Pfingst

Analyst

Got it. Appreciate that detail Jake. And then my second question, I've asked you this one before. But curious if your thinking has changed regarding order conversion from pipeline to more of something firm? And if it's starting to make more sense to try to lock in a PPA with a customer as we get closer to '26, '27 and ultimately, that first plant being built?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. Well, our view has always been find and build the right partnerships and deals with customers and takes time to do that in the most constructive way possible for the company and not necessarily rush into PPA timing but rather build better offtake structures because doing this inherently is not the same exact thing as sort of just doing a power offtake purchase from like a solar project, which is what much of the I would call it legacy conventional PPA structure has been built for. There's a lot of room to be also more creative. And that opens the door to do a lot of things that are important for frankly, derisking a lot of things for us that the off-takers are also incentive aligned to do with us. So yes, I mean, we've continued to develop customers in the market, and we continue to do that here and that is part of kind of our intentional cadence and strategy to do that. And I think as we work towards what we're executing against we expect to be able to kind of mature those in the places that do make sense for everybody to kind of build a really constructive usual relationship that is part of an offtake agreement that also helps derisk some of the stuff today into that for them, for their power offtake that's pretty powerful. So that's kind of where our focus -- I shouldn't say kind of that is where our focus has been for the last over 12 months or so. And we're continuing on that pace because that's what the market is quite supportive and receptive to and we expect that to continue and position us well so that going into the next year and beyond, we'll start converting those into…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

Tyler Bisset

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

This is Tyler Bisset on for Brian. Wanted to follow up on a prior question. I just wanted to confirm, are you guys still targeting commercial operations at INL to commence between late '27 and early '28 or the shifting to the DOE pathway, accelerate that time line? And it sounds like full activation is targeted for early January. So what are the next sort of milestones we should be watching out for that supports that time line beyond January?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. I mean this is what's really exciting about the reactor pilot program. It opens the door for quite a bit of different ways of doing things and thinking about things in terms of cadencing these milestones. So a couple of big things to pull back. We have 3 pilot programs awarded to us. We talked about those a little bit in earnings. One as you were, I know the other is for the [indiscernible] pilot prototype production reactor. That is on pace for that plant and specifically in place to turn on in June, July of next year, 2026. It's incredible, it's awesome, it's really cool to see how that's progressing. So that's a pretty big set of milestones alone to achieve that. So obviously, we'll continue to update the market as we hit milestones on that front as we execute into that. Then there's the Pluto reactor, which is basically plutonium fuel testing reactor that will have a continued set of milestones as well. That bridges well into serving both research and development purposes for us to serve that for the government. We announced earlier today partnering with Idaho National Laboratory, the Battelle Energy Alliance about providing fast neutron radiation capabilities. Pluto will kind of expand on that capability set, but that has an incremental set of milestones that will march forward about moving towards basically [indiscernible] driving fuel systems and critical assemblies and test reactors that are happening on a pretty fast time scale as well that we'll continue to update the market over the course of the next 6 -- well, the next 3, 6, 9, 12 months out. And then back to part of where your question was on the Aurora INL plant. The authorization path that's important here it allows us to move into…

Analyst

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Awesome. Super helpful. And then really appreciate the incremental details around the 20 tons of plutonium reserves potentially being made into 180 tons of Aurora fuel. Can you help me understand what underpins that conversion math or your assumptions because that was a lot more than what we were estimating. And then is this an opportunity for your fuel recycling facility? Or would processing this material require a separate NRC license facility? Because it sounds like that fuel source could accelerate your deployment schedule.

Jacob Dewitte

Management

So one of the things that we got -- I love that question for so many reasons. And I'm sure some folks are probably going to be a little nervous going to spend the whole time getting into the technical details, which I'll try not to because [indiscernible] a pre-recorded practice sessions we were thinking about getting really, really deep on all this. Let me rephrase that. I was just doing that because this is one of my favorite things technically. So to answer your question, Yes. So the key thing about plutonium right, is it's an incredibly useful fissile material as a fuel source. In other words, if you think about HALEU is 19, it's up to 20% less than 20% rich [indiscernible] the balance here in [ 2028 ]. And the fast reactor, pretty much all the [ isotopimplitonium ], but especially the stuffing available, which is mostly [ 239 ] with some [indiscernible] [ 40 and 41 ] in there. But that material, it's a great bridge fuel because it can be a direct replacement for the [ U-235 ] without needing any enrichment right [indiscernible]. So you blended in with uranium. And in our case, you have in zirconium obviously making toll-fuel, but you just blended [indiscernible] with uranium to make a HALEU equivalent [indiscernible]. Now the thing about plutonium is it's an even better fuel than uranium. So you need less of it to get commensurate performance. So on average, and it depends by the variations in flavors in the fuel, but on average, if you basically it's about 11-or-so percent equivalent. So about 11% or so plutonium is equivalent in our reactors and behavior and performance to about 19 -- just under 20% [indiscernible] uranium. So that's where that conversion in math comes from.…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi.

Ted

Analyst

It's Ted. I wanted to ask about the Pluto test reactor. So it looks like it's going to be deployed after the first reactor at INL. Is this going to be the template for all the future reactors? And what are the differences to Aurora? Is it only that it's going to be run on plutonium? Should we also assume a 75-megawatt size for it? And then just lastly, what are the main learnings that you hope to obtain from this test reactor?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. It's a great set of questions. So basically, it's a little bit different as bespoke to enable the accelerated sort of fast neutron radiation testing capabilities at a system like that can afford. That's important for a couple of reasons. Like part of what we've talked about is at the company right? If you think about what Oklo does, obviously, the reactor part is what people focus a lot on. We sell power, we sell heat. We have these other parts of the business that we had to build to deliver into that [indiscernible] fabrication, which will help us, obviously, make fuel for our reactors, potentially for others, too, which is part of what some of the investments in partnerships, which we announced this quarter touched on. Additionally, we talked about recycling, which is great because we can make fuel for ourselves as well as potentially for others and sell various materials and isotopes coproducts from that as well as possibly recycling services, all great. And then obviously, the isotype side of the business, which is specifically focused on that. Part of the reactor part of the story, though, and also somewhat ties over to the isotope side is we are a fast tractor, we use fast. We make fast [indiscernible]. We will have [indiscernible] terms to help test and characterize materials and fuels. That is not a capability that we've had in this country in 30-plus years. And it's not a capability that the Western world has had in a similar time frame, so like in 20 years or so. So it's an important thing that we're bringing to bear. The government set forward on building a big dedicated test reactor, but it was a government program. So it actually had a lot of sort of challenges around…

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. I mean, I guess I'll kind of hand this over for Craig, if you want to kind of answer some of it, and then I can chime in.

Richard Bealmear

Management

Yes. So I think directionally, we would expect the dollars to be similar to the components. In terms of an actual dollar breakdown, we're still refining a lot of our cost estimates now that we've got [indiscernible] onboard and now that we're deepening some of our procurement activities, and we'll probably have more to share on that going probably into 2026.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

Jonathan Dorsheimer

Analyst · William Blair.

I guess first, I don't know if Jake want this or Craig, but just if you could talk a little bit about backlog. I think it was 14 gigawatts, has that changed at all? And maybe just a little bit of color on the discussions that you're having. Is it mostly utility? Is it mostly hyperscaler? Just that breakdown, if you would. And then I have a follow-up.

Richard Bealmear

Management

Yes. Jed, I can take that. So I'd say the 14 gigawatts is still predominantly made up of data center and hyperscaler customers. I think I mentioned to you last time we were on the phone. We've also got other potential customers in the mix that aren't identified customers as part of that 14 gigawatts that could maybe even cause that number to go up. I know the bigger question is, when do you convert that into a PPA. And I'd say we are [indiscernible] on that, with pace and urgency and actively exchanging term sheets. I never want to promise an exact date on when we might announce something because it takes Oklo to be on the same page with the customer. But I'm really pleased with kind of how those commercial discussions are progressing. And not just on the PPA price, but I think we're also seeing good traction on -- similar to what we were able to achieve with [ Equinix ], which was a prepayment for power. We're also progressing conversations with customers that could convert into prepayment for power or prepayment for fuel or some other asset-oriented contribution to the deal itself.

Jonathan Dorsheimer

Analyst · William Blair.

Got it. That's helpful. Just along those lines, the discussions does as Atomic Alchemy in having that standing up a fueling recycling, even if that's in the future, has that kind of moved some of those discussions along from a supply chain risk? And -- sorry yes, that's...

Richard Bealmear

Management

Well, I would say Atomic Alchemy is probably -- the types of conversations we're having around feedstock for isotope production taking customer discussions into contract conversion. The steps are the same, but it's definitely with different counterparties on both the feedstock side, the supplier vendor side and all of that. But I think we are excited around the tremendous progress that the team is making around the reactor pilot program that Atomic Alchemy was awarded. And in addition, we're also making good progress on the lab scale facility that will be down the road at INL. And I think, as I've said earlier, there is the possibility for the lab scale project that we could be generating revenue and gross margin. It's going to be in the single million dollars, not anything bigger than that, and it won't be exactly ratable. But we're excited about what we might be able to do to actually turn some of that -- the lab scale facility, especially in the gross margin in the first half of next year.

Jonathan Dorsheimer

Analyst · William Blair.

Got it. And then just one for Jake. If I just look at using an EBR for isotope production and isolation, do we need to wait until you get the VIPR up for sort of an [indiscernible] tailoring? Or can that be done in between? I ask because [indiscernible] is really well suited for cobalt and Lutetium, which are being used for sort of the radioisotope or radiopharma market right now? And just curious on the EBR side, whether or not you need that tailored reactor before you can do that or if there's an in-between?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes, it's a good question. I mean there's a couple of steps actually to parse that out. So one, there are some things we can do in the near term without a reactor in terms of isotope sort of consolidation and recovery that we are making progress we talked about any update towards in Idaho, where you'll be able to actually have infrastructure and facility capabilities to actually do some of that work and start producing some of the isotopes from those kinds of sources. But for sort of the most meaningful, and that's great because we get some practice repetition, maybe help accelerate revenue which is cool. But at the end of the day, it helps position us with experience to then move into the next stage, which is where the reactors really unlock significant differentials in performance. And yes, [indiscernible] do that. They're also not in the U.S. And there's a pretty important focus on these production capabilities being in the U.S., not even in our nearest neighbors, right? And so -- and [indiscernible] limited. They can do some things pretty well but they can do everything very well. And the [indiscernible] production reactor design is designed to do pretty much most everything pretty well that you can do with thermal neutron key caveat. So the nice thing about that reactor is we'll have its prototype up running by the middle of next year. It uses standard pressurized water reactor fuel bundles that are just shorten in height at commercial scale. And that's often instilled with LEU. And it's part of what we were drawn to with this business was it wasn't trying to design because some of the margins and the numbers that these radios isotopes bringing to you. Have drawn some folks in the field to…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell with Seaport Research.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst · Seaport Research.

Congratulations on all the progress. I hadn't planned this one, but I found the last discussion brief as many. So Jake, let me just ask, when you get around to trying to do isotope radiation with an Aurora, are you going to be able to do it in a way that won't interrupt your fuel cycle? You mentioned the Russian reactors, it has kind of a peculiar fuel cycle that allows it to go in periodically and do the irradiation. And of course, they can't do it without any interruption. But typically, reactors have to match their refueling cycle with their radiation. So I'm just wondering if you think about that?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes, it's a great question. By and large, like the focus of those reactors is really power production, but some of the flexibility that will be afforded to us by, for example, the word, Idaho as well as the Pluto reactors will give us a lot more flexibility to do more work around those things. So think of it more as imagine some like 4 normal commercial optics, we want to harvest on those neutrons because it makes sense we're going to have to fit it into the power cadence because that's the primary driver. But we'll have some flexibility and some other reactors that will give us more flexibility to kind of match that accordingly because we're going to be doing other testing work. So there's going to be some interesting planning in coordination like it is for other test reactor or radiation and test reactors to sort of optimize to that and do the trade-offs. But generally speaking, yes, for the vast majority of the focus, if we're going to use any of their fast neutron capacity, would be largely skewed towards minimizing, if not completely avoiding interference on the power operation schedule, while there will be a couple that we'll have more flexibility that we can kind of optimize to on the isotope side if it makes sense to do so. So it's kind of one of those acknowledgments of yes, we're going to have to look at possibly parsing some of the asset operation schedules, if it makes sense to do, and that's the key question is if it makes sense to do.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst · Seaport Research.

Okay. Yes, that makes sense. The other question I wanted to ask you is, if you could give us any update on your proposed natural gas or Aurora partnership with Liberty Energy. Liberty has recently spoken about it at a high level, and they seem to indicate they've been aimed towards large projects. I wondered if there's been any diminished appetite on Oklo side as its progression to Aurora construction has accelerated?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. I think in general, we still see it as a pretty powerful bridge. I think we've seen now several other groups be talking at a broad thematic about the gas to nuclear [ camo ] and bridging capabilities and features that offers. So we continue to see that as a positive thing in different customer discussions. I think what we see in general though, and this is a bit anecdotal. So take it for that. But I think some of the near-term focus and priorities at the moment is around utilizing stuff that's basically on grid to be the nearest term operation will kind of preference, where that will be a key enabler for getting some stuff built or powering [indiscernible] already being built and filling in the power to either meet additionality goals or other kind of feature sets that this can do. And then that is in parallel happening, but just the temporal nature of the project planning isn't kind of followed by the benefits of being able to bring gas into enable power at a site for either a colocation or near location or even behind the meter approach that gas [ Canadian ] will pretty successfully. So I mean it's still a pretty powerful feature in market conversations and discussions. But I think at the end of the day, like I don't think there's much diminishment on it. I think if anything there's a lot of validation that it's valuable and it's a future and it continues to kind of evolve and progress. One of the challenges I think we see in the commercial markets. I don't know if you call it a challenge, but one of the things we've observed is a lot of focus on the hyperscalers has been on the energy objectives they have over the next -- on multi-month scale time frames, right? Maybe that [indiscernible] to 24 months or less but like stats where they're obviously really, really focusing most of their activities is making sure they're in a good position for all of what they need them. And they're increasingly looking at the longer-term views, just given how constrained the power markets are as a whole, realizing they need to expand those horizons and that systematically continue to see evolve and gas as an ability to bring power to a facility or site sooner is pretty powerful. I still think -- I'll say that I still think that the understanding of the benefits that making fuel government fuel availability, like was it increasing government fuel availability like the plutonium side, which can be quite accelerative to building new [indiscernible] plants faster and more plants fasters. It's still being digested in the market. So like that may have an ability to help show a path to bringing nucleon even sooner, and that's, I think, pretty potent. And I think it's still very early innings for folks understanding of what that means given the nature of it's still pretty fresh.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst · Seaport Research.

Yes, that makes sense. But at least I wasn't completely irrational. So I appreciate the color.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Derek Soderberg with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Derek Soderberg

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald.

Just one question for me. Is there a level of prepayments you need to make to secure some of these long lead time items in either the nuclear, nonnuclear supply chain? And wondering if you can quantify how much capital it will require to just ensure access to those long lead time items as you scale?

Richard Bealmear

Management

I can take that one. So like we're currently working on progressing I don't want to mention the vendor specifically, but some of the other supply chain partnerships we've already announced, and there might be some form of a prepayment, but it's in the -- it's in that 10% range. So it's a number, but it's not significant. And I think one of the reasons, though, that we're so glad about the success we've had around the capital raise is that we can -- we don't need to have capital be a constraint that if we find an opportunity and it makes sense in terms of the returns to do a prepayment because we can get a better price point on the asset, then we can go forth and do that.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Sherif Elmaghrabi with BTIG.

Sherif Elmaghrabi

Analyst

Just a 2-parter on the fuel line pilot at INL. Do you have a target online date? And then the facility was also selected for a DOE program, which you mentioned. And I'm wondering if there's an economic opportunity there as soon as the facility comes online or if that's also something that needs NRC approval to monetize?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. So I just want to understand the Aurora plant, so that is going through DOE authorization to get built and turned on initially and get through some of the initial operational cycles. And then the intent is to move that over into a commercially operating space. I will flag like moving that over to [indiscernible] license is the most likely path. It's not impossible, though, that given some of the dynamics of what's happening on the DOE side that there might be pathways to kind of sell into the government that could exist. We're not planning that that's exactly where it is, but that is something that has been and it was in the EOs and that might be something that does evolve, but the plan is to convert that over to a [indiscernible] that experience you gained. Were sitting to the day is great because you point to real data with the real plant and just move some of that stuff pretty constructively forward. The Atomic Alchemy plant in Texas, the intent we have on there is to primarily be serving where DOE is. It's not impossible that we go convert it over to a license as well. There's some optionality potentially there. But the general view is keep the DOE facility get the experience of living running it, giving some radiation work, provide them some support to DOE emissions and possibly opening the door for other things. But at the end of the day, that's kind of how we see that and that similarly is kind of how we think about the Pluto reactor as well. Again, it's possible that there's a feature set to convert many of these facilities or convert these to energy license, all of them to energy licenses, that's a possibility, but the…

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from the line of Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers.

Craig Shere

Analyst

What are the prospects for rounding up remaining fuel needs to maximize your made in INL powerhouse to 75 megawatts? And if you don't have it upfront as you commence operations, the later get NRC approval and can commence full commercial sales. At that time, could you refuel to maximum capacity?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes. Although given the recent activities and traction around a multitude of kind of fuel policy arrangements as well as what we're seeing in the commercial fuel supply markets. I think we feel increasingly confident that we'll be able to have the fuel needed to run that facility if not immediately at the onset and full power pretty close to the immediate onset of full power. Not that this is the plan because we feel, again, increasing confidence that there's going to be extra HALEU that we can use for that facility from actually a variety of sources, which is the diversity sources as part of the confidence the inspiration of the company. The other part of it is we can in that reactor if we needed if we were able to get, for example, access to some of that plutonium piece stock, make that into fuel that could be located in commingled with the reactor fuel there. It just means some assemblies would have sound-bearing fuel, some would just be [indiscernible] fuel and you can design it to work just fine in that configuration manner. And given that, that material exists in a pretty much ready to fabricate form, it gives us a lot of confidence in how that can actually kind of proceed. So that's how we see that kind of playing out.

Craig Shere

Analyst

Great. And last for me. To the degree you start employing, which sounds like a great opportunity, this plutonium mix to help bridge quicker plant deployments. Does that have any implications on NRC regulatory process? Do they have to shift because of the new fuel mix and having some plutonium in there? Does that have any proliferation concerns of any kind?

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Yes, it's a great good question. There are some inherent things that are a little different. To go back in the history of this plutonium kind of its legacy and policy history. The President's executive orders directed 34 tonnes that was slated for diluted disposed to be made available for reactors [indiscernible]. Before the program of diluted disposed, which is are we going to spend $20-plus billion of tax rate money to just blend the stuff up to [indiscernible] sand and bury it. The program before that was actually fabricated into fuel as part of a joint treaty with Russia at the time for stockpile reduction. And the plan was to take that material fabricated into fuel for light water reactors and then use one reactor what was called the [ MAX ] program and the facility in South Carolina to do that. That program -- you could spend a long time and for time sake, I'll keep it very simple and a little bit simplistic. That program had significant struggles because plutonium fuel and light water reactors while very doable is inherently something very different than what we do as a country here. So the infrastructure to do all that wasn't necessarily in place because plutonium does behave notably differently in a slow neutron reactor than a fast reactor. It's still behave differently the uranium and the fast reactor, but the difference is more amplified and accentuated in the thermal spectrum or slow neutron reactor, especially water cooled reactor. And it wasn't something the utilities were really one thing. Fuel markets were not constrained. It was not something that there was a market for. And it was a [indiscernible] government run approach where the facility got way out of controlling costs and everything else because it wasn't mainly driven…

Operator

Operator

And with no further questions in queue. I will now hand the call back over to Jake Dewitte, CEO and Co-Founder of Oklo. Please go ahead.

Jacob Dewitte

Management

Thank you. Thank you all for joining in today. We appreciate it. There's -- this is the second call since the executive orders were signed. The first call since we had the reactor pilot program and fuel pilot program selection. So it has significantly changed how we think about the regulatory landscape and the regulatory strategy we're employing accordingly. It's significant in its accelerated features but also in its regulatory derisking features. This aligns pretty well with what we're also seeing in the policy landscape driving sort of a continued focus and effort on modernization not just the Department of Energy, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Our work with the NRC has not stopped. It still continues. But now it gets the benefit and the accelerating benefit of working with the Department of Energy and the National Laboratory ecosystem that supports this, that will help NRC reviews and generally seeking, enable a world where NRC reviews will be accelerated and made more efficient and generally speaking, improved by the experience is already done by the DOE. DOE have a tremendous track record of safely authorizing and reviewing and overseeing nuclear facilities. And the NRC and DOE, don't forget were born from the same entity, the Atomic Energy Commission. And so there's a lot of kind of common threads. They worked together for a long time, and we're happy to see that, that's kind of continuing and in some ways, they're even getting closer again to work together. And I mean that in a constructively independent way where NRC can use DOE's best resources and information because one of the best ways you can do safety analysis and safety oversight is good understanding of what the system is you're overseeing and leveraging our nation's leadership, technically speaking, that the DOE has,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you again for joining us today. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.