[zipwitch]

The whole article reads like the punchline for another joke involving Admiral Rickover's famous letter. (We had a thread on this same topic, involving a company mentioned in this article, not three months ago, and a thread on Admiral Rickover's letter two weeks before that!)

"An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose (’omnibus reactor’). (7) Very little development is required. It will use mostly off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now."

Link to the other thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22851622

Link to the recent HN discussion of said letter by Admiral Rickover here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22715730

[credit_guy]

Rickover joke was pointed at the competition that could take away resources from him to do R&D for his nuclear submarines.

In this context, Oklo uses private funds. Simple, small, cheap, light, quick to build, flexible, little development are all irrelevant. Safety is the only relevant thing as far as the NRC approval is concerned.

If it turns out NRC deems this reactor safe, and Oklo manages to work out the economics so they make a profit, Rickover for once will not have the last lough.