sahil

Student of Life. Alum: @USC, @MIT, @UChicago

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@CaitlinCloud9 Austin is lucky to have you here!!

[Yasir Arafat @yasir_fission]

We’ve gone critical.

At 12:20 am on July 4th, Aalo sustained a controlled fission chain reaction for the first time. We have officially surpassed the goal of President Trump’s Executive Order 14301, achieving 4 advanced nuclear reactor criticalities by America’s 250th birthday.

This is a zero-power criticality to validate our supply chain, reactor physics and control systems for our 10 MWe full-powered reactor, the Aalo-X, targeting power operations next year.

Everything was built at full scale: fuel, moderator, control systems, etc., so we understand system performance at its commercial scope.

That also meant tackling four of the most difficult things in nuclear with this criticality milestone:

 ✅ Ground-up construction of our reactor facility
✅ Manufacturing the reactor in our factory and shipping them by road
✅ Assembling our own fuel assemblies using commercial UO2
✅ Standing up training, safety, and operational programs to become our own nuclear operator

I am proud to say we have accomplished all four goals, along with achieving criticality.

The reactor building was constructed in 36 days and construction to criticality was achieved in under 8 months. That’s the fastest nuclear build in the last 80 years.

A massive congratulations to the Aalo Atomics team and our partners. Many thanks to Idaho National Laboratory, the DOE-Idaho Operations Office, and the Office of Nuclear Energy for their immense support in enabling this milestone and dedicated to the American nuclear resurgence.

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@MattLoszak Huge congrats to you, Yasir and the Aalo team! 👏

[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.

[Matt Loszak | Aalo Atomics @MattLoszak]

Tomorrow is a big day for Aalo, and the future of clean energy on Earth.

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@MattLoszak Congrats to you and the whole Aalo team! Getting to near-criticality this fast is no small feat!

Excited to see what comes next 🚀

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@elonmusk @gork please explain this

[Texas Nuclear Alliance @NuclearTexas]

Summer is winding down — and there's only 36 days until the 2nd Annual Texas Nuclear Summit.

What started as an idea is now a movement turning vision into reality.

A dynamic forum where operators, policymakers, builders, and investors come together to turn plans into projects.

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@andrewkirima 🚀🚀🚀

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks @MegapontNFT @StackingDao expands the stacks ecosystem

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks Game on!

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks Here we go

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks Naka is almost here

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks StackingDAO

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks @StackingDao

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@Stacks $NOT is my favorite

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@trygamma @Stacks SPD0GTJN3QB65FB94FAVNAD188E9KVE0XHJHZD5N

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@justinaversano Happy birthday day brother 💙

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@BitX_Brc20 bc1pfsehh9kphpsny7u2c9zr0yzwt5yp95x0pf44fa4ddkcq0s49jqwq64nfdk

[sahil @sachdevsa]

@callmehouck Lead