‘Critical National Importance’: Firm once tied to Sam Altman seeks to fast-track secret, partial nuclear power project

The advanced-nuclear developer calls the project nationally important—but redacts the customer, location and facts that would explain why.

Oklo Inc. has asked federal regulators to rescue a 750-megawatt power project that PJM Interconnection removed from its grid queue, setting up a consequential fight over whether the nation’s largest electricity market can accommodate the unconventional generation packages being assembled for large data-center customers.

In an emergency complaint filed Aug. 28 at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Oklo accused PJM of unlawfully withdrawing project C01-1735 from the first cycle of the grid operator’s overhauled interconnection process.

PJM pulled the application Aug. 3. Oklo wants FERC to restore its original queue position in time for a Phase I study scheduled to begin Sept. 28.

The project would combine 150 MW of advanced nuclear power, 300 MW of fuel cells, and 300 MW of natural-gas generation. The nuclear and gas units are synchronous machines; the fuel cells connect through inverters.

That mix could provide complementary operating characteristics, but it does not fit neatly into PJM’s data fields or testing categories.

Oklo gives the project an extraordinary billing. The complaint’s opening calls it “of critical national importance,” and elsewhere states that it is needed to “address PJM’s critical regional supply and demand.” Further description is redacted.

Instead, the filing supplies Oklo’s federal résumé. The Department of Energy selected two Oklo projects for its Reactor Pilot Program and selected the company for advanced negotiations—not a final award—under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program.

Idaho National Laboratory is working with Oklo through Project Prometheus to apply artificial intelligence to reactor and fuel-system design. The Air Force issued a notice of intent to award Oklo a potential microreactor project at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

The Air Force says its proposed contract remains contingent on negotiations and nuclear licensing. Oklo’s latest SEC filing also identifies Meta under a separate prepayment agreement supporting a 1.2-GW nuclear campus in southern Ohio; it does not identify OpenAI as an Oklo customer or connect Meta to C01-1735.

The location, customer, purpose, and economics are blacked out. So is the mid-sentence explanation of what the multi-fuel design “will enable the Project to” accomplish.

Oklo invites readers to associate the company’s defense, energy-security, and AI credentials with this project without confirming that any one of them is the basis for its urgency.

Related: Explainer: What Is Oklo—and What Is It Trying to Build?

Oklo says PJM withdrew the project without proper notice or a meaningful chance to fix alleged problems. PJM sent a formal deficiency notice May 15, identifying six categories of issues and giving Oklo 10 business days to respond. Oklo says it cured them and repeatedly sought confirmation that nothing else was required.

But a PJM reviewer posted five additional comments to the project’s NextGen portal on June 24. Oklo says those comments appeared 41 business days after the application deadline—and 26 business days after PJM’s tariff window for raising deficiencies had closed. They generated no email alert. PJM also did not respond, the complaint says, when Oklo requested a call to talk about it.

PJM’s withdrawal notice cited discrepancies among models and portal data, a missing updated dynamic-model report and checklist, and a failed stability simulation. Oklo says those items were readily correctable and that it has updated information ready.

Missing Cycle 01, the company estimates, would delay the project at least 14 months and add deposits, site-control payments, and other carrying costs.

The second claim concerns PJM’s technical test. Its guidelines require inverter-based resources to demonstrate low-voltage ride-through—the ability to remain stable during a grid disturbance. Oklo says it tested the inverter-connected fuel cells, corrected an initial “momentary cessation” issue, and demonstrated that they could ride through the fault.

PJM later tested the full plant, including nuclear and gas units, and found instability. PJM maintained that Oklo had not demonstrated stability for all fuel types. Oklo counters that a facility-wide ride-through requirement appears nowhere in PJM’s tariff or guidelines. If a first-of-kind hybrid needed a different test, Oklo argues, PJM had to say so and allow a response.

One geographic clue survives: a footnote cites a “PJM / Dominion / Oklo Power LLC” kickoff call, pointing toward Dominion’s Virginia territory and the center of the country’s data-center corridor. The redactions are consistent with a large, unnamed data-center offtaker—stopping short of confirming anything else.

That makes the case worth tracking beyond its docket. PJM is processing unprecedented volumes of new-generation and large-load requests as AI campuses drive demand higher. Cycle 01 is the first cluster under reforms that replaced PJM’s serial queue, with more than 700 projects in the opening study group.

Oklo wants reinstatement by Sept. 21. FERC has not ruled on the merits. But the shadowy project is an early test of whether PJM’s reformed queue can study nationally strategic, first-of-kind power systems fast enough to matter—or whether unfamiliar technology and administrative silence become the choke point.