OKLO CEO warns of US power grid capacity shortages amid superpower partnership

The United States is headed toward an energy crisis caused by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, and the nation’s power grid is not ready to handle it, an executive behind a major new nuclear partnership warned recently.

Jacob DeWitt is CEO of OKLO, a California-based advanced nuclear company focused on helping large energy users add grid power through private investment rather than traditional utilities. He joined Meta CEO Joel Kaplan and Energy Secretary Chris Wright for the announcement in Washington.

The Meta partnership will go a long way to adding much-needed power to a key regional component of the national grid, DeWitt said, citing Oklo’s plans to develop a 1.2-gigawatt facility in Pike County, Ohio, near the Hocking Hills.

“I think one of the really exciting things today is announcing the fact that we’re going to be building more power generation capacity,” he said, adding jokingly that southeastern Ohio was an “industrial cathedral” and could now see a commercial rebirth for the digital age and the age of artificial intelligence.

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“smaller [nuclear] Plants can be built more quickly and activated quicker – then shortening the learning curve. “You’re reducing the cost of iteration cycles in terms of time and money to drive technological advances and move forward with these technologies that hold promise in terms of cost reduction … energy dominance, energy reliability and energy availability,” he said.

DeWitt added that Wright and President Donald Trump have helped companies like Oklo and Meta unleash this new energy potential, not only to increase energy capacity and adjust structural issues but also to significantly reduce the regulatory burdens that private companies tend to face from Washington.

With the advent of artificial intelligence and its energy needs, DeWitt said the US energy system as it currently stands “certainly” has not been able to keep up.

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DeWitt warned that the United States needs to build out the power grid and invest in new facilities like the BIKE site:

“This country is going to run out of energy capacity in the next few years, especially in critical industrial markets like the Midwest and Northeast. [which supports the Mid-Atlantic region] “There will be a shortage of power generation supply in just a few years.”

“The steps taken today will help alleviate this, but more is needed.”

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DeWitte also addressed what he described as a common misconception surrounding the rise of data centers, which has sparked a NIMBY backlash in parts of the country.

“I think sometimes people get confused [that] Building these data centers [will] Raising prices – This is a scarcity mentality. We are in a world with an abundance mentality, aren’t we?

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He said Meta was committed to a total of 6.6 gigawatts of new capacity, describing it as “tremendous capacity” to supply the needs of the coming decades, and that nuclear power was a very reliable energy source.

One of the biggest structural chokepoints in bringing new energy online and the reason the country is running out of power, inflating prices, is the regulatory environment that has stifled growth for many years, DeWitt said.

This dynamic was “fundamentally anti-energy,” he said.

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But that dynamic is changing, DeWitt said: “The unfortunate thing is that we have to Undo decades of damage [from] “Not doing things to overcome this inertia.”

“Look at the states that have the worst energy levels…they are largely states that had the most aggressive anti-energy policies, states that are now facing some of the biggest challenges at this point, and they are responding as well which is encouraging.”

OKLO was founded on the idea that nuclear fission could provide vast amounts of reliable, affordable energy, he said, noting that nuclear power has some of the lowest fuel costs per megawatt hour of any source.

“However, our view on it changes some things, including the business model, [and the] The publishing model, including how we think about scale and technology. “We see opportunities to invest and build significant generating capacity in areas that need it and have significant development opportunities around them,” he said, noting that brings the conversation full circle regarding its investment in the Ohio site.

When asked whether the US energy problems are a regulatory failure or a market failure, DeWitt said the problem is red tape versus demand.

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““We decided, as a country, that we did not need to build new energy capacity and instead masked the challenges this poses to industrial and economic growth by offshoring jobs and production.”

“Then those countries just build the power plants to run them. We need to bring the manufacturing capacity package back to the country, but we need the energy to do that, and we don’t have it today.”