2026-08-28 — PJM dropped Oklo’s Meta-backed Ohio nuclear project from its interconnection queue, and the FERC dispute is still open

• PJM Interconnection removed a 750MW Oklo-led, Meta-backed project — 150MW advanced nuclear, 300MW fuel cells, 300MW natural gas, sited in Pike County, Ohio (one of the four awards under Meta’s up-to-6.6GW nuclear RFP, Oklo’s “1.2GW Aurora”) — from its interconnection study cycle, citing an unaddressed requirement to show the project could “ride through a sudden drop in grid voltage.” Oklo disputes the removal procedurally, saying PJM posted the deficiency finding via its NextGen portal on June 24 without a formal notice, denying it a chance to respond, and filed an emergency complaint with FERC on 08-28 asking for reinstatement at its original queue position — arguing the removal adds at least 14 months of delay and materially raises costs. As of this morning no FERC ruling has been reported; Oklo’s stock fell roughly 5-6% on the news. It is the first of Meta’s four nuclear awards to hit a hard interconnection obstacle, and the dispute is about queue procedure rather than the reactor’s licensing. (Utility Dive)

2026-07-30 → 08-17 — Three announcements, zero licences

Logged 2026-08-18, twenty-four days late — the coldest thread in the rotation. This thread’s test is which projects clear LICENSING.

• On the test: nothing moved. No new NRC construction or operating licence was granted to any AI-linked reactor project across the entire 07-25 → 08-18 window. Oklo’s NRC Principal Design Criteria approval (May 2026) and its DOE Reactor Pilot Program agreement (March 2026) both predate it. The thread’s core claim — ~0 net-new MW before 2027, every genuinely new SMR project 2030s-weighted — is unchanged and unchallenged.
• Crusoe and Aalo Atomics announced a “first nuclear-powered AI factory” (07-30) — Aalo’s 50MWe “Pod” (five 10MWe Aalo-1 microreactors) powering a Crusoe Spark modular AI datacenter, as a 2027 proof-of-concept at Idaho National Laboratory, with general deployment at Crusoe sites targeted by end-2029. A partnership and a demo, not a licence; Aalo’s test reactor reached criticality 2026-07-04. (Crusoe)
• X-Energy drew up to $1B more DOE funding for its Dow/Seadrift, Texas project (08-13), announced alongside Q2 earnings and bringing total federal backing to up to $2.15B. Funding escalation, not a licensing event. Centrus signed a uranium-enrichment supply contract with X-Energy (08-17) supporting Xe-100 and TRISO-X — supply-chain progress, same category.
• ⚠️ Trap caught: “Oklo stock jumps on $200M AI data center nuclear plan” (dated 08-10) is a re-index of a DOE programme announced 2026-07-21, before this window. Excluded.

2026-08-04 — A named hyperscaler retreats from a nuclear-adjacent site (caught 08-05)

• AWS formally withdrew its application for a ~500MW, 8-building data center campus on ~2,000 acres of Constellation Energy land next to the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Lusby, MD — filed 2026-05-04, withdrawn 2026-08-04, no public reason given. Local reporting ties it to a contentious approval fight (a commissioner’s signed NDA, job postings that leaked pre-announcement, and the county moving toward new data-center zoning restrictions) rather than a stated power-supply failure. (Southern Maryland Chronicle)
• 💡 Directly on this thread’s “announced-to-operational gap” watch line — this isn’t a licensing failure like the thread’s usual SMR-timeline skepticism, but it’s the same underlying pattern: a nuclear-adjacent AI site that was announced and then didn’t happen, for reasons outside the nuclear technology itself.

2026-08-03 — A Nvidia-linked nuclear startup raises $1B to go from prototype to production (caught 08-05)

• Valar Atomics closed a $1B Series B led by Sequoia Capital at a $6B valuation, three years after founding — money earmarked to move from running a single test reactor in Utah to a production line building small reactors, following a development deal signed with Nvidia in June 2026. (TechCrunch)
• A second, smaller nuclear-for-AI data point the same week: Aalo Atomics (already on this thread’s radar via its 07-30 Crusoe tie-up) reported reaching criticality in its own test reactor — a real technical milestone, but still a prototype step, not new AI-serving capacity. ⚠ single-source (American Nuclear Society), not independently corroborated.

2026-07-27 — The nuclear book across the four

• Microsoft: TMI/Crane 2027 (DOE $1B, NRC draft + FERC cleared) · Amazon: Talen 1.92GW/17yr firm + X-Energy 5GW-by-2039 · Google: TVA/Kairos Gen-IV (2030) · Meta: RFP awards ≤6.6GW (Oklo/TerraPower/ Vistra) — but hedged with a 7.5GW gas pivot. Skeptical note: SMR timelines lag near-term demand (Bulletin, 07-20).

2026-07-25 — First federal dollar

• DOE tapped Oklo/X-Energy for a $200M nuclear-for-AI push; aggregate nuclear deals signed by AI companies now ≈ 7M homes of power (07-26 figure). The thread’s first real items since opening quiet.

2026-07-24 — Opened + crawled

• Thread opened (ben-steer).
• Verdict: power is the binding constraint, and nuclear is a real but 2030s-weighted marathon. Carnegie (06-2026) pegs the ~13GW of announced hyperscaler nuclear at <20% of projected datacenter demand through 2035; a single year of planned US solar (43GW) dwarfs the whole mid-2030s nuclear pipeline. The near-term “firm” adds are restarts/uprates that re-label existing MW, not new generation. ⚠ WebSearch budget exhausted (fan-out) — some 2026 items aggregator-only, flagged.

← Backstory (crawl 2026-07-24 → artifacts/findings/nuclear-for-ai-2026-07-24.md)

2026-06 — The reality check

• NRC issued a draft Environmental Assessment for the TMI-1/Crane restart (~835 MW, still in SAFSTOR, final finding ~Sept 2026) — the first firm power, targeted 2027. Same month, Carnegie’s “Beyond the Hype” quantified the announced-vs-real gap. (Carnegie)

2026-01 — Meta’s nuclear trifecta

• Meta signed three deals in one month — TerraPower (~2.8GW Natrium by ‘35), Oklo (1.2GW Aurora, Ohio, by ‘34), Vistra (~2.6GW existing-plant PPAs + uprates) — new-build plus fleet re-labeling. (Carnegie)

2024-2025 — The wave’s anchors

• Microsoft/Constellation to restart TMI-1 (09-2024, 20-yr PPA, ~835MW, now targeted 2027) · Amazon/X-energy ($700M, Xe-100 SMRs, first ~320MW ~2030) + Amazon/Talen 1.9GW existing-reactor PPA · Google/ Kairos (50→500MW by 2035, first US Gen-IV PPA). Every genuinely NEW build is a 2030-2039 SMR/Gen-IV project on designs not yet operating in the US. (World Nuclear News)