President Trump's aggressive nuclear goals have helped break the decades-long logjam for new projects, a leading figure in advanced reactor development says.

Why it matters: Oklo CEO Jacob DeWitte's bullishness comes as White House executive orders and AI demand boost prospects for nuclear's long-promised renaissance.

Driving the news: The Energy Department announced last week it would speed testing of 11 advanced reactor projects — including three from Oklo — as part of a pilot program spurred by May's executive orders.

• The orders set up a DOE-DOD partnership for at least three test reactors to achieve self-sufficiency by July 4, 2026. They also envision reactors on military sites by 2028.
• The actions are "opening up sort of a different pathway and unleashing government in a more constructive way," DeWitte told Axios. "We have this moment to rethink what's possible."

The big picture: Oklo — a Sam Altman-backed venture developing a compact reactor — is positioned to reap the benefits of fueling military bases and data centers.

• Oklo aims to commission a commercial-scale reactor at Idaho National Laboratory by late 2027.

The intrigue: DeWitte dismissed concerns about the White House infringing on the NRC's independence, arguing the commission has resisted change.

• The NRC in 2022 denied Oklo's application to build and operate a reactor in Idaho, though the company is trying again.

Friction point: The NRC has defended its ability to license reactors and said it's carrying out the ADVANCE Act and Trump's executive orders.

• Democrats have expressed alarm at the firing of a Democratic NRC commissioner and installation of a DOGE representative at the agency.
• The administration is "listening to the startup guys who want to say that the regulator is the problem, when most of the mature players in the industry are not saying that," a source familiar with the situation — who spoke on condition of anonymity — told Axios.

State of play: DeWitte contrasted Oklo's eagerness to take on first-of-a-kind projects with the caution of electric utilities.

• Oklo doesn't need federal backstops for reactor projects — as envisioned in Sen. James Risch's ARC Act — to bring down costs, DeWitte said. It just needs quicker licensing and permitting.
• "The view in D.C. and Capitol Hill and the policy space is still so heavily biased towards utilities being the ones who are going to drive everything in this industry forward," DeWitte said.

The executive orders' biggest timeline accelerant? Speeding up nuclear fuel enrichment, he said.

• The orders tap existing DOE fuel stockpiles to supply the first batch of reactors, creating a bridge to the point when enough advanced reactor demand can support fuel producers.

What's next: DeWitte isn't worried about nuclear's fortunes being too tethered to AI demand, which is making power-consumption forecasts hard to predict.

• "The AI side can just move faster and more efficiently than anyone else can, and has a lot of capital as well," he said.
• "The simple fact is, as we see things moving, we feel pretty comfortable that those kind of dynamics" will last.

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Oklo is among the nuclear startups benefiting from supportive federal policy and AI power needs that are bringing new corporate partnerships.

🕵️ The Commerce Department opened an investigation into the national security effects of imported wind turbines and components.

• Why it matters: It could bring more tariffs — hence higher costs — to an industry grappling with many Trump 2.0 anti-wind policies and levies on steel and aluminum imports.
• Threat level: "Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie said approximately two-thirds of the value of a typical U.S. wind turbine is imported," Reuters notes.
• What we're watching: Commerce is probing "the impact of foreign government subsidies and predatory trade practices" and "the potential for foreign control or exploitation of the wind turbine supply chain," to name just two of many areas listed in a notice.

🛢️ The State and Treasury departments unveiled fresh sanctions targeting Iran's oil exports.

• State of play: They include moves against Greek national Antonios Margaritis, accused of "illicitly" facilitating transport of Iranian oil, and sanctions on China-based terminal and storage operators. Go deeper.

➡️ Energy Secretary Chris Wright extended an emergency order to keep the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant in Michigan running for an additional 90 days.

• Friction point: Power grid experts and environmental groups have rejected the administration's logic that plants like Campbell are needed to keep the lights on.

🪖 Via Reuters, the Defense Department is "seeking to procure cobalt worth up to $500 million for defense stockpiles amid the country's move to boost its critical mineral supplies."

🤝 Blackstone is buying electrical services firm Shermco in a $1.6B deal, the latest in a string of power-related acquisitions by the private equity giant as demand rises and data centers bloom. Go deeper.

💵 Crusoe Energy Systems, a data center infrastructure company, is planning to raise $1b in equity and debt at a $10b valuation, Bloomberg reports.

👀 Pacifico Energy says it's developing a 5-gigawatt, gas-fired off-grid power project in Pecos County, Texas, that's "purpose-built to support hyperscale data centers," and aims to have the first 1GW running in 2028.

• Plans for these huge data center campuses are stacking up, and we'll see which ones come to fruition, but it's one to watch. This one also features 1.8 GW of storage, too. Go deeper

Anthropic and the U.S. government's nuclear experts have developed a new tool that can spot the difference between a scientist asking Claude about nuclear reactors and a spy probing it for secrets about weapons development.

Why it matters: Scientists can benefit from the productivity boosts of Claude and other AI models — but distinguishing between legitimate research inquiries and potentially harmful uses has been tricky.

Driving the news: Anthropic has been partnering with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to find ways to safely deploy Claude in top secret environments.

• Now, they're building on that work and rolling out a new classifier in Claude that determines, with 96% accuracy in testing, when a conversation is likely to cause some kind of harm, the company announced.
• Anthropic has already started rolling out the classifier on a limited amount of Claude traffic.

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That's how many posts, spanning 157 countries, that MIT scholars analyzed in research that uses social media to explore global warming's effect on mental health.

The big picture: "[M]oderate warming can improve sentiment in cooler regions, but temperatures above 35°C [95°F] negatively impact emotional well-being globally," it finds.

• The effect is far more pronounced in low- and middle-income countries, where "sentiment" declines by 25%.

The bottom line: There's an "urgent need" for climate policies that address emotional impacts, the paper finds.

Full study...MIT summary