Is Oklo a buy?

Oklo is an advanced nuclear developer building "Aurora Powerhouse" fast fusion reactors, plus a fuel recycling and medical isotope business

They plan on selling power, not power plants. Instead of building reactors for utilities, it intends to build, own, and operate its Aurora units and sell electricity and heat under long-term power purchase agreements

...which is a recurring revenue model! Interesting.

Source: Oklo 10-Q

First, the science!

Because of my nuclear background, I HAD to dive into the science first of what they're doing and offer my 2 cents.

They could be on the precipice of a really great flywheel. They are trying to develop fast neutron reactors. If they can create this, then, in conjunction with their planned recycling ability, they could take a lot of the nuclear waste around the world and use it. This is also a renewable company, which is really cool.

I need to check the economics and the science of commercial deployability before I comment further - but color me intrigued.

One FASCINATING quote from CEO DeWitte argues U.S. used nuclear fuel contains more than 95% of its energy and is worth more than Saudi Arabia's oil reserves.

Next, the business

Management is running Oklo as three busines units:

power (Aurora)
fuel and fuel recylcing
isotopes

Power is the the most obvious when you'd think of nuclear power company: hot rock, heat water, spin turbine. The interesting thing on their business strategy is that they plan to sell the power, not the power plants - creating a recurring business model.

Fuel and Fuel Recycling: this one is pretty obvious, but their market is interesting. The claim is that today's reactors only use about 5% of the energy contained in their fuel, meaning 95% of the energy remains unused.

Isotopes are an interesting business unit. They basically are saying they can get high value isotopes through three ways as they outline on their site:

They are hammering on domestic production (which I believe is a megatrend) to fill these applications, which they call essential:

A potential design for the Oklo Aurora reactor

Oklo broke ground on first Aurora reactor in Idaho Falls - 9/22/25

It's important to note: none of these three business units sell a commercial product at scale. The company reported $1.21 million in Q2 revenue, but that came primarily from recent acquisitions.

Challenges

The tells worth tracking: the revenue timeline language has quietly drifted. FY2024 filings pointed to first electricity between late 2027 and 2028; the current framing is 2028, and the Meta phase has moved to roughly 2030. Management's preferred proof points have also shifted from power toward the near-term isotope and fuel units, which is where the only actual revenue and near-term revenue potential now sit. On the Q2 call, analyst Q&A pushed on plutonium as a bridge fuel and reactor physics rather than commercial contracts, a sign the Street is still probing technical readiness.

The scoreboard management points to is not GAAP earnings. It is: total customer pipeline capacity (now about 14 GW), regulatory milestones (DOE authorizations, NRC acceptances), deployment milestones (groundbreaking, criticality, construction progress), and liquidity ($3.0 billion). The divergence to flag: management's headline KPI is a 14 GW pipeline, but that number is a sum of frameworks and letters of intent. An independent behind-the-meter analysis estimated binding PPAs likely represent less than 1% of the total. That is the single most important gap between how the company frames itself and what the documents support.

My thoughts

I'm interested in the technology behind this company, and their ability to execute. Valuing this business will be very, very hard as we'd be trying to base the valuation off of 2030 cash flows.

But color me interest at least. Here's my source list/recommended reading for anyone who wants to study this one with me:

SEC filings