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Deep Borehole Nuclear Waste Disposal Just Got A Whole Lot More Likely

This article is more than 4 years old.

Deep Isolation is a recent start-up company from Berkeley that seeks to dispose of nuclear waste safely at a much lower cost than existing strategies.

Deep Isolation

The borehole technology was developed by the gas and oil industry, but Deep Isolation realized it could help dispose of nuclear waste just as well.

Today the company announced it was partnering with nuclear giant Bechtel National, Inc. to bring Deep Isolation’s patented technology to fruition.

Elizabeth Muller, CEO of Deep Isolation, notes, “Bechtel was the first major industry player that understood the significance of what Deep Isolation is doing. They appreciate the importance of innovation and urgency in solving the nuclear waste problem.”

They should. Bechtel is part of the largest engineering and construction company in the United States, and one of the largest nuclear contractors of all time, having contracts at Hanford, the Nevada Test Site, WIPP in New Mexico, and many other nuclear sites and programs around the world.

In America, it takes that kind of heft to get anything off the ground, especially in the nuclear arena.

The idea of deep borehole disposal for nuclear waste is not new, but Deep Isolation is the first to consider horizontal wells and is the first to actually demonstrate the concept in the field (see figure), showing that the technology is not just theoretical. The field demonstration occurred on January 16th when it placed and retrieved a waste canister from thousands of feet underground.

Deep Isolation

The technology takes advantage of recently developed technologies to place nuclear waste in a series of two-mile-long tunnels, a mile below the Earth’s surface, where they’ll be surrounded by a very tight rock known as shale. This type of shale is so tight that it takes special technology to get any oil or gas out of it at all.

As geologists, we know how many millions of years it takes for anything to get up from that depth in the Earth’s crust, especially in tight rock formations like shale. And we have plenty of shale in America (see figure).

Sandia

So what better way to use this technology than to put something back in that you want to stay there for geologic time.

Under this new agreement, Bechtel will provide support such as project management, financial/business and engineering capability for Deep Isolation’s sales in both domestic and international markets, including those with the U.S. Department of Energy. Deep Isolation will provide options to support Bechtel’s cleanup work at federal government sites around the country. Deep Isolation could also be a key player in Bechtel’s decommissioning contracts at commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. and worldwide.

James Taylor, general manager of Bechtel’s Environmental business line, said, “Deep geologic disposal is the scientific consensus for permanently removing and disposing used nuclear fuel and high-level waste from their current locations around the country. We have long-term expertise in design, engineering and licensing, as well as the boots-on-the-ground experience with the everyday challenges of cleaning up radioactive waste. Bechtel is proud to support such an innovative technology that offers an alternative solution for safe, retrievable disposal of used nuclear fuel and high-level waste.”

Globally, there are roughly 450,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that await disposal, or re-use in future reactors, and there is currently no operating disposal solution for it or the waste from its re-use. Implementing this technology, which is the goal of the agreement with Bechtel, would fill a big hole in our nuclear future, one that is necessary for us to seriously address climate change or succeed in any Green New Deal.

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