Key Takeaways
- Oklo shares jumped 4% today after the Department of Energy cleared its Groves-1 test reactor for unrestricted operations.
- Groves-1 shows Oklo can build fast, but it still needs a cost for its first Aurora powerhouse and a binding customer.
- Analysts expect only $39.2 million of revenue in 2028, and Oklo’s cash covers about half of what they expect it to burn through 2030.
- NuScale Power and GE Vernova also rose, but the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans matter more to both of them.
Oklo (OKLO) soared 4% today after the U.S. Department of Energy cleared its Groves-1 test reactor for unrestricted operations. NuScale Power (SMR) rose 4% with no news of its own, and GE Vernova (GEV) gained 3% as AI-power stocks rallied.
Groves-1 went critical in August, less than a year after groundbreaking. In Oklo’s release, Chimi Zacot, DOE’s acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Reactors, said the program had “reset the nuclear industry’s expectations for how quickly we can move from advanced reactor design to demonstration.”
A fast build, with the bill still to come
Oklo needed to show it could build fast, and it has. Next, it will train crews on Groves-1 for its Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory, targeted to start up in 2028 or 2029. But Groves-1 won’t bring in sales, and analysts expect revenue of just $39.2 million in 2028:
Nothing in today’s news should move those estimates.
Oklo still hasn’t said what Aurora-INL will cost, and it has sold stock to build its cash and equivalents from $10.4 million in 2021 to $788 million at the end of 2025:
By Sept. 30, cash and securities had reached $3.13 billion, about half of the $6.3 billion analysts expect Oklo to burn from 2026 through 2030.
TIKR tracks 25 analysts on Oklo. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Oklo, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Oklo’s Analyst Ratings
TVA matters more to NuScale and GE Vernova
NuScale ended the third quarter with $1.9 billion of cash and investments. But its partner ENTRA1 is still in talks with the Tennessee Valley Authority with nothing binding, and analysts expect NuScale’s revenue to fall 91.9% this year. I read today’s gain as a ride on Oklo’s news.
GE Vernova is further along with TVA, which won a Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction permit in late September for a GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at its Clinch River site. Still, GE Vernova’s third quarter was all about gas turbines: Power orders rose 178% organically to $21.8 billion. I’d want to see BWRX-300 orders in its late-January report before giving its nuclear business much credit for today’s gain.
Oklo earned this one, up to a point
Oklo earned some of today’s jump: a working reactor in less than a year is real progress. But until it puts a cost on Aurora-INL and signs a binding power contract, I’d expect the stock to trade on the mood around AI power as much as on its own progress. Its full-year report, expected in mid-March, could bring that first cost figure, and that’s the number I’d watch.
So what is Oklo stock actually worth?
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