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Rendering of a proposed Oklo commercial advanced fission power plant in the U.S.

Courtesy: Oklo Inc.

Nuclear startup Oklo aims to deploy 12 gigawatts of power over the next two decades through a framework agreement with data center operator Switch, the companies announced Wednesday.

Oklo would deploy what amounts to a fleet of small nuclear reactors through 2044, with power generation equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of more than 9 million households in the U.S.

Oklo would develop, build and operate the small nuclear plants. It would sell the electricity to Switch through a number of power purchase agreements for its data centers across the U.S. Oklo and Switch have not signed any individual power purchase agreements yet.

Oklo’s stock rose more than 10% in premarket trading.

The broad agreement signed by Oklo and Switch is a nonbinding framework that sets high level goals to execute against, Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte told CNBC in an interview. It creates a vehicle to advance large scale, multi-site power development and deployment, DeWitte said.

Oklo is a startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that is developing micro nuclear reactors. Altman is Oklo’s chairman, and the company made its market debut in May through a merger with his SPAC, AltC Acquisition Corp. Oklo has a market capitalization of $2.33 billion.

‘Transformative scale’

Switch is a privately held company headquartered in Las Vegas that designs, builds and operates data center campuses in the U.S. CEO Rob Roy said Switch is committed to deploying advanced nuclear power “at a transformative scale for our data centers” through the relationship with Oklo.

Oklo is developing reactors that are much smaller than those in the current U.S. fleet. Its reactors are expected to range in power capacity from 15 megawatts, to 50 megawatts, to 100 megawatts or more. By comparison, the average reactor in the U.S. is currently around 1,000 megawatts.

The reactors that would service Switch would primarily be 50 megawatts, DeWitte said. Oklo would have to build 240 reactors of that size by 2044 to meet the 12 gigawatt deployment goal.

Oklo thinks its microreactors will reduce the costs associated with building new nuclear plants, slash construction timelines, and give power customers more flexible options.

Oklo has not deployed a reactor yet. The company aims to bring its first plant online at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls in 2027.

People familiar with the matter told Reuters in September that Switch is considering an initial public offering that would value the company at $40 billion. Switch was taken private by DigitalBridge and IFM Investors for $11 billion in December 2022.

Demand for nuclear power is growing in the U.S. as technology companies and other data center developers search for reliable, carbon-free electricity to power artificial intelligence.

Amazon and Alphabet announced investments in small nuclear reactor technology in October. Microsoft is helping to bring the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant back online through a power purchase agreement.

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Elon Musk goes on Tesla self-driving propaganda spree ahead of TSLA earnings

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Elon Musk goes on Tesla self-driving propaganda spree ahead of TSLA earnings

Elon Musk went on an all-day Tesla self-driving propaganda spree ahead of the company’s earnings, which are expected to be rough.

It’s well known these days that Musk doesn’t often comment on Tesla as he is busy with his government work, buying elections, and running several private companies.

Some Tesla shareholders argue that the CEO is neglecting the public company, which saw its stock tumble this year.

That wasn’t the case today.

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Musk went on a tweeting spree about Tesla, specifically about Tesla’s self-driving effort.

Here are some of the highlights:

Tesla posted that “one day” its vehicles will drive themselves from the factory to new customers and Musk couldn’t stop himself and had to say that it will happen “this year”:

Like most of Musk’s self-driving comments, this one is hard to take seriously since he said the exact same thing in 2018 and claimed it would happen in 2019.

The tweet he was responding to has been deleted by the author, but it asked when Tesla vehicles would drive themselves to customers:

Spoiler alert: regulators are not the bottleneck here.

Musk then claimed that “Tesla self-driving will be far safer than human driving”:

The problem here is that Musk has claimed on many occasions that Tesla’s FSD is already safer than humans, like in 2023: “Supervised FSD is vastly safer than human driving.”

There’s no data that supports that. Tesla refuses to share any data regarding its self-driving program and instead, the company shares a very misleading quarterly “safety report.”

Considering Tesla’s FSD requires supervision from a driver at all times, the driver’s supervision and attention help reduce accidents that the self-driving system wouldn’t necessarily prevent.

Musk also shared positive experiences of a few Tesla owners, including a Tesla engineer and Joe Rogan:

As we often highlight, Tesla’s FSD can be impressive to use, but the problem is when you compare it to its promise, which is in the name: full self-driving.

Under its current form, FSD is still a level 2 advanced driver assist system, and not self-driving, but Musk said that it would become truly “unsupervised” self-driving every year for the last 8 years.

Therefore, it’s not what Musk has been promising buyers for years and as for when it is coming, he has been consistently wrong and has asked owners to rely on anecdotal experiences as Tesla refuses to release any data.

We previously reported that Musk has twice positively referred to a crowdsourced Tesla FSD dataset that shows Tesla’s FSD v13 on HW4 is achieving fewer than 500 miles between critical disengagements.

Tesla has previously stated that FSD must achieve 700,000 miles between critical disengagements to be safer than humans.

The spree of Tesla FSD tweets comes as Tesla is preparing to report its Q1 2025 earnings next week, which should be difficult after the automaker reported its lowest delivery results in three years.

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Texas just shot its wind + solar boom in the foot on purpose

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Texas just shot its wind + solar boom in the foot on purpose

Texas is No. 1 in the US for wind and solar capacity, but the Texas Senate just passed a bill that aims to kneecap clean energy with an industry-killing review process. Will the Texas House pass it, too?

The Texas Senate today passed SB 819, which creates new restrictions on the development of wind and solar energy under the guise of “protecting” wildlife. The restrictions don’t apply to any other forms of energy.

Texas uses an extraordinary amount of power, and renewables play a big part in supplying that power. The Texas Tribune reported in March that “ERCOT [the Texas grid] predicts that Texas’ energy demand will nearly double by 2030, with power supply projected to fall short of peak demand in a worst-case scenario beginning in summer 2026.” That’s because of extreme weather, population growth, and crypto-mining facilities.

As of February, Texas increased its energy supply by 35% over the last four years, and 92% of that supply came from solar, wind, and battery storage.

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Solar is the largest source of energy generating capacity that has been added to the Texas grid. That’s because it’s cost-effective and it can be deployed quickly. So if new solar projects are kneecapped, power demand will outstrip supply in the Lone Star State.

Daniel Giese, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)’s Texas director of state affairs, stated after the Senate’s vote, “With energy demand rising fast, Texas needs every megawatt it can generate to keep the lights on and our economy strong. We cannot afford to turn away from the pro-energy and pro-business policies that made the Lone Star State the energy capital, but that’s exactly what SB 819 does. We urge the Texas House to reject this bill.”

Less clean energy would also jack up electricity bills for Texans, and rural areas would lose billions in landowner revenue and tax payments. Every time a wind farm or solar farm is installed on rural land, it brings a lot of money to the community that surrounds it. A January report estimated that existing and planned solar, wind, and battery storage projects will contribute $20 billion in local tax revenue and $29.5 billion in landowner payments.

What’s especially baffling about this bill is that it flies in the face of a core Texas value – keeping the government out of private property decisions – yet it does precisely the opposite.

Environment Texas executive director Luke Metzger issued the following response: ‘By making it much more difficult to build wind and solar energy in Texas, this bill threatens to increase pollution, increase blackouts and increase our electric bills.​

“Under the guise of helping land and wildlife, SB 819 would create a discriminatory and capricious permitting standard that could grind renewable energy development to a halt.

“We urge the House of Representatives to reject this bill and instead support policies that promote a cleaner, more sustainable energy future for all Texans.”

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I find this bill ludicrously masochistic. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and please keep it civil.

Read more: A vast 600 MW Texas solar farm just hit a major milestone [update]


To limit power outages and make your home more resilient, consider going solar with a battery storage system. In order to find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and you share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

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Blink just made it a lot easier to find its charging stations

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Blink just made it a lot easier to find its charging stations

Blink Charging’s (Nasdaq: BLNK) new partnership with Eco-Movement will make Blink’s EV chargers a lot easier to find across multiple platforms.

Eco-Movement is a global platform that collects, refines, and maintains a massive real-time database of public and semi-public EV charging locations and pricing data. That info is used by some of the biggest names in the industry. Now, Blink is tapping into Eco-Movement’s platform to make its chargers way easier to find – whether you’re searching on Google Maps, asking your voice assistant, using a charging app, or navigating from your car’s dashboard.

As new Blink chargers come online, Eco-Movement updates its database of EV charging locations in real-time, and that information is incorporated by mapping and charger-finder apps. That way, EV drivers are kept up to date.

Mike Battaglia, president and CEO at Blink, said, “The leading mapping apps trust Eco-Movement and its state-of-the-art, quality-checked, and constantly updated data. We are excited to be teaming with them to ensure drivers worldwide can easily find our chargers and receive up-to-the-minute updates on charger availability.”

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Eco-Movement’s global database includes detailed charging point info – like addresses, operators, pricing, accessibility, truck compatibility, and real-time availability – along with roaming partners, membership rates, and payment options.

“Ultimately, this data will help EV drivers all over the world to find their next charging stop, which is a mission we share with Blink,” said Roderick van den Berg, CEO of Eco-Movement.

Read more: Blink Charging will more than triple EV charger production with a new factory


To limit power outages and make your home more resilient, consider going solar with a battery storage system. In order to find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and you share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

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