DOE Approves Final Safety Analysis for Oklo's Groves Reactor, Advancing the Project Toward Operational Authorization
Oklo announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has approved the Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) for Oklo Isotopes’ Groves Isotope Test Reactor in Texas under DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program (RPP).
The DSA is the facility’s final safety basis grounded on a detailed technical analysis of potential hazards, safety controls, and operating requirements needed to support safe startup. The DSA approval follows DOE’s approval of the Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (PDSA), which established the facility’s preliminary safety basis during design and construction.
With both the PDSA and DSA approved, Groves moves from the documentation phase into DOE’s final pre-startup review. The remaining steps are DOE’s readiness review and startup approval. Following startup approval, the facility will be authorized to receive and load nuclear fuel, conduct startup testing, and proceed toward first criticality, the point at which a reactor achieves a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Oklo is targeting first criticality for Groves in July 2026.
“When the Administration issued its Executive Order calling for multiple advanced reactors to go critical outside the national laboratories, it challenged the industry to demonstrate a new way forward,” said Oklo co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. “Groves is that demonstration. It is the first advanced reactor project to receive approval of its Documented Safety Analysis that is on privately owned land, with wholly commercially sourced fuel, equipment, and systems delivered by the private sector. And with full, enduring civil construction, and operations led entirely by a private-sector team under DOE oversight. This is a truly representative facility of future commercial facilities that Oklo intends to build and operate.”
“With approval of both the Preliminary and Documented Safety Analyses, Groves now moves into the final phase before startup, including readiness review, fuel loading, and criticality,” DeWitte added. “Less than a year after breaking ground, Groves is advancing toward criticality and demonstrating that advanced nuclear can move from an open field to deployment on a commercial timeline and with a commercially representative facility. DOE demonstrated remarkable capabilities to review and reach this milestone for a facility of this type, and for a facility outside of a national laboratory on this timescale. As the first project of this nature to achieve this milestone under the DOE Reactor Pilot Program, Groves provides a blueprint for how the United States can accelerate advanced reactor deployment while maintaining a rigorous, practical safety process.”
Groves supports the development of Oklo’s isotope business and helps establish a stronger domestic supply chain for critical isotopes used in cancer diagnosis and treatment, advanced manufacturing, scientific research, space exploration, and national security applications. Many important isotopes are currently sourced from overseas suppliers or produced in aging facilities, creating supply risks for U.S. hospitals, industry, researchers, and government users.
By starting with a pilot facility, Oklo’s isotopes business has developed operating procedures, evaluated reactor system performance, will validate production processes, and build dependable domestic isotope production at commercial scale in the US.
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