By Rett Nelson
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ARCO, Idaho (eastidahonews.com) — A giant American flag hung resolutely Thursday during the unveiling of the world’s first experimental extra modular nuclear reactor.
Texas-based Aalo Atomics broke ground on the reactor, and the 3,600-square-foot building surrounding it, last August. It sits on a 1-acre parcel inside the Idaho National Lab’s Materials and Fuels Complex.
The 50-foot-by-30-foot display of the stars and stripes might have seemed like a fitting symbol for CEO Matt Loszak and the rest of the team to celebrate the completion of the first nuclear reactor on U.S. Department of Energy property in 50 years. Fuel is expected to arrive in a few weeks, and the reactor will go online before July 4. It will be fully operational next year once the data center, which will be used for nuclear and artificial intelligence projects, is complete.
As the crowd gathered Thursday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the reactor, Loszak noted that the project was completed nearly four months ahead of schedule. The reactor was built in 40 days, and the building that houses it was completed in 36 days — a feat he says is “unprecedented.”
The groundbreaking began two weeks after Aalo Atomics was selected by the DOE to participate in President Donald Trump’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program. The administration aims to beat out China and Russia and lead the world in nuclear and AI innovation. The president signed four executive orders to have an active nuclear reactor ready by July 4.
Yasir Arafat, the chief technology officer for Aalo Atomics, told Thursday’s crowd that many private companies felt it was impossible and backed out. Aalo Atomics, which began as a two-man operation in 2023, jumped in headfirst. The company hired a team of experts from multiple industries to streamline the manufacturing process and has since grown to have more than 100 employees.
The appeal of building a reactor on the INL site, according to Loszak, is the fact that it’s been the proving ground for nearly every new reactor technology built in America since the 1950s.
During Thursday’s unveiling, Loszak said he’s thrilled to be part of something so historic.
“We are so excited, so thrilled and so honored to be here today for this incredible milestone,” he said.
In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, Loszak said once the project is complete, the site will generate up to 10 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power about 10,000 homes.
“We’ve seen some nuclear reactors (producing) 100 kilowatts (of power), 500 kilowatts, or a megawatt. What we’re doing is ten to 100 times more powerful than those other reactors,” Loszak says.
Aalo Atomics will deploy gigawatt-scale factories around the world to produce several gigawatts of electrical capacity annually. The company recently signed an agreement with Idaho Falls Power to provide 70 megawatts of nuclear power to the grid. This, Loszak says, will allow them to test the technology while stabilizing the grid and helping to keep power rates low for customers.
“It’s a technical stepping stone towards that future,” he says. “It’s the first demonstration of many reactors you’ll see with cheap, clean, safe, reliable nuclear power around the country.”
Amid the push from the Trump Administration for America to lead the world in nuclear power and AI, remote areas throughout Idaho and the Intermountain West seem to have become a prime target for these type of projects. Earlier this month, Deseret Magazine reported that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, broke ground on a 960,000-square-foot data center complex in Kuna — one of the last places in the Treasure Valley that still feels remote.
Many of these data centers reportedly use large amounts of water to cool down their reactors. While this is not the case for the Kuna reactor, it remains a concern for many in a state where water shortages are an ongoing challenge, and farmers rely on its limited supply for irrigation.
Loszak provides some reassurance. He says the reactor they’ve built on DOE land is a more advanced design that will not use any water and will not add to Idaho’s water woes.
“We use liquid metal as our reactor coolant, and the final heat rejection is air-cooled condensers,” says Loszak. “There’s no consumption of water in our product.”
But the plant will use about as much power as it generates. That’s why, according to Loszak, any extra power it generates will be sold back to the grid to add extra resilience.
The ‘Second Atomic Age’
Between 1950 and 1975, Loszak said 52 nuclear reactors were built at the INL. The construction site is near EBR-II, a nuclear reactor launched in 1964 that was used to test materials and fuels for fast reactors. It was the last reactor built on DOE property, which was shut down in 1994 due to Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S.
In 2023, the DOE approved the development of the MARVEL reactor, ushering in what officials called the “Second Atomic Age.”
Just before cutting the ribbon, Loszak expressed excitement at being part of the new atomic age and reflected on the historic significance of their new reactor.
“Our nuclear forefathers, the men and women who created the first atomic age, lived this same experience 50 years ago. It makes me a little emotional to be able to experience this same thing and carry the torch from where they left off,” he said.
AI is the economic future of America, Loszak said, and the innovations that built the reactor are a game-changer. As the new reactor sat beneath a 50-foot American flag, Loszak expressed a sense of urgency to win the global nuclear and AI race.
“It’s really important that the other countries leading in nuclear are not the ones who propagate this technology across the world. We must do that,” Loszak said.
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