Jacob DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, Oklo

As you enjoy the holiday week with your friends and family, we wanted to share with you a discussion with a small, independent micro-reactor developer that could be on the road to some of the first commercial advanced nuclear deployments in this country. Oklo’s founders, Dr. Jacob Dewitte, CEO, and Caroline Cochran, COO, were kind enough to join us for a discussion around the world of microreactors, Oklo’s plans for deployment, and the broader challenges overall. Veriten has enjoyed getting to know the Oklo team through CERAWeek and other activities over the last year and wanted to share some of their unique perspectives, approaches, and experiences with you all.

Jeff and I began our conversation with Jacob and Caroline around their recent first-of-a kind submission with the NRC and its subsequent unfortunate rejection. Sharing their thoughts around how things have changed since then and what they plan to do differently, we also turned to just how burdensome the regulatory process has been overall for their deployment plans and how Oklo’s plans to blend the roles of owner, operator, and vendor impacts their goals and potential customers. We also dove into how a small team with an aggressive approach can achieve success versus some of the much larger and more established organizations and learned what Oklo sees as their biggest challenges and obstacles. We hope that you enjoy hearing from Jacob and Caroline as much as we did and we look forward to hearing more about their success in the future.