Nick Travers

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@pronounced_kyle I’m interested in attending!

[Matt Loszak | Aalo Atomics @MattLoszak]

His hair 👀

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@MattLoszak To those about to rock- We salute you 🫡

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@Gentleman_Ways Don’t drink for the first three weeks

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@MattLoszak Split don’t emit

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@AaloAtomics Aalo FTW!!

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@MattLoszak @JoeTegtmeyer Holy damn

[Matt Loszak | Aalo Atomics @MattLoszak]

Very excited to announce that at 12:20am on the 4th of July, Aalo achieved criticality on our first full-scale reactor.

We cut it close, but we pulled it off!!

Working towards this goal with such an incredible group of humans has been the most fulfilling period of my life. This moment has been three years in the making.

Last year, Executive Order 14301 called for at least three new reactors to go critical before July 4th, 2026.

As of late last Friday night, that goal has been surpassed!

When the EO was announced, we immediately sat down to figure out what the most ambitious scope would be, while still being potentially achievable by July 4th.

Some of the team proposed doing simplified designs with smaller fuel loads, or building in existing facilities.

One thing was clear: We wouldn't have time to integrate a full-scale sodium heat-removal loop to bring the reactor to its full 30 MWt.

So here’s where we landed:

➡️ We purchased the entire commercial-scale fuel load. This is enough fuel to operate at 30 MWt / 10 MWe for 3 years before refueling. To my knowledge, it’s the largest fuel load that’s been taken critical in the DOE pilot program, by far.

➡️ We built a full-scale reactor vessel in our factory, and loaded in our commercial graphite layout. All the dimensions, vessel thickness, and manufacturing techniques are essentially the same as we will use for the imminent commercial version. There will be a few minor tweaks for sodium flow and full-power, but nothing major.

➡️ We built an entirely new reactor facility at the Idaho National Lab. Building a building is easy. Building a new reactor facility comes with a mountain of paperwork, policies, operation and training procedures, security, instrumentation and control, and more.

Zero-power criticality might seem like a small step, but I can tell you, going through the exercise of building a reactor and taking it to criticality has been extremely valuable.

The learnings on regulatory, ops, manufacturing, supply chain, QA, economics, engineering, and design will accelerate our path through to the final iteration at full-power.

America is blessed to have a recent Cambrian explosion of startups in nuclear, all going after different markets, technologies, and strategies.

I’m excited that sodium, gas, salt, and new PWRs are all getting pushed forward once again. The best outcome for humanity is to have all these advance in parallel, as quickly as possible, while maintaining safety.

Thanks again to our amazing team, DOE, INL, BEA, and everyone else who helped us get to where we are today.

This could not have happened anywhere else. Happy birthday, America!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

There has never been a better time for nuclear energy. The Second Atomic Age has begun, and this one will be here to stay.

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@MattLoszak Go Aalo!

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@Jason_A_Scharf @JLopas I’m a PJM Interconnection customer in exile

[Matt Loszak | Aalo Atomics @MattLoszak]

Reactor vlog and status update

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@dylan_robideaux @oklo Can you share the hyperlink to this page? Where do I find it?

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@Jason_A_Scharf Agree so much. Not enough people talk about how after 5,000 years of human civilization, one day a few years ago we woke up and found that sickle cell anemia had essentially been cured. Do people realize where these insane breakthroughs come from?!?

[Steffan Szumowski @UnoMasReactor]

A graphic that can never be shared too much

Nuclear is safe
Nuclear is clean

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@yasir_fission Dr. Dre, Dr. Pepper, Dr. Suess, Dr. J., Dr. Doolittle…Dr. Yasir Fission

[Erik Townsend 🛢️ @ErikSTownsend]

I just can't say this loudly enough: The global balance of power for the next 50-100 years will be determined by who is first to make nuclear energy cost less than coal and gas. Energy dominance directly leads to geopolitical dominance; history is crystal clear on that.

China is quietly kicking the West's ass down the street. America's present nuclear renaissance is exactly the right recipe, but it's going to prove too little too late at the rate we're going.

China will assume the role of global dominance USA enjoyed for the last 80 years for the next 100 years, and it will have been our failure to modernize and economize our nuclear energy strategy that cause the West to lose our dominance.

This story will take decades to play out, but the handwriting on the wall couldn't be more clear: China is kicking our ass and we're too goddamned stupid and complacent to realize it.

DOE's nuclear leadership under @SecretaryWright and companies like @AaloAtomics are fantastic news for America. But compared to China's nuclear energy program, we're so far behind that it will be nearly impossible to catch up. And we handed China all the American-made technology they needed on a silver platter. It sickens me to see what's coming so clearly and have so many around me completely blind to it.

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@kkliman Still got his Topps card

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@AaloAtomics Where can we find the rest of this interview?

[Republican Accountability @AccountableGOP]

This wasn't SNL on a Thursday night.

This was Wyoming's Republican primary debate.

[Nick Travers @GreenTeaYankee]

@Kan__Fatima @AmrullahSaleh2 He didn't run away. He is still fighting in the Panjshir valley.