Newer nuclear fission reactors offer greater safety and employ cutting-edge technologies, far different from those used just a few decades ago, but the problem of nuclear waste remains.Various solutions have been considered, and the United States is one of the countries that has experimented most in this regard.

As always, the private sector is leading the way with a new project based on deep-sea disposal. The company Deep Isolation has announced encouraging results from testing a system that identifies underground drilling as the answer to the need for stable and permanent confinement of radioactive waste.

The main challenge is ensuring there are no long-term risks, so all possibilities are being explored through in-depth simulations. Analyses conducted on nuclear waste show promising compatibility with this type of geological repository, according to the company. Given this highly sensitive issue, in-depth studies will be necessary, but for now, the physical models used indicate long-term safety levels exceeding established objectives and extremely low radiation exposure, well below the most stringent standards. This is not a one-off project, and in fact involves collaboration between Deep Isolation and several industry players such as Oklo Inc., along with other US research centers.

But operationally speaking, how do they plan to operate? Currently, the idea involves relying on drilling techniques already used in the energy industry, adapting them to create vertical, horizontal, or inclined deposits at great depths. The waste will then be sealed inside containers designed to withstand the test of time, while also being isolated by natural barrierssuch as clay or granite rocks.

This isn’t even the first time a similar approach has been attempted, and already in 2019, afirst demonstration test used a prototype container, free of radioactive material, which was lowered and then successfully recovered from a horizontal well using standard drillingtechniques. Therefore, the doubts about its feasibility are truly minimal, but as you can well imagine, this is not the main problem.

And if long-term safety concerns weren’t enough, there are also regulatory issues. In the United States, large-scale adoption of these repositories would require legislative changes to officially authorize the use of deep wells for high-level waste, so the process could take longer than expected.

Translated into English from: https://www.hdblog.it/green/articoli/n653504/smaltimento-rifiuti-nucleari-profondo

Nuclear waste streams are compatible with deep borehole disposal.

Deep Isolation has completed additional engineering and modeling work in coordination with ARPA-E and Oklo to “enhance key technologies supporting the recycling of used nuclear fuel through electrorefining”. The study models high-level waste being disposed in Deep Isolation’s borehole system, achieving long-term safety levels surpassing model targets.

High-level waste, when disposed of in Deep Isolation’s deep borehole system, achieved long-term safety levels.

In the Optimizing Nuclear Waste and Advanced Reactor Disposal Systems (ONWARDS) project titled Enabling the Near Term Commercialization of an Electrorefining Facility to Close the Metal Fuel Cycle, Deep Isolation said the analysis “confirmed that nuclear waste streams partitioned through the Argonne-baseline electrorefining process are compatible with deep borehole disposal, demonstrating a safe and practical pathway for permanent isolation.”

Waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation Nuclear has claimed that results of a study it conducted with reactor developer Oklo demonstrate that deep borehole disposal could be an option for disposing of high-level radioactive waste generated from the recycling of advanced reactor fuel.

Study results show that deep borehole disposal could be a viable option for disposing of high-level radioactive waste.

US nuclear waste disposal company Deep Isolation Nuclear Inc announced that federally funded research has shown that deep borehole disposal could be a viable option for disposing of high-level radioactive waste from advanced reactor fuel recycling.

Under standard definitions, the major forms of energy considered to be renewable include solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, along with other forms like ocean energy from tides and waves. These energy sources are replenished naturally on a human timescale and are used to generate electricity, heat and biofuels. Although nuclear energy is not formally classified as “renewable,” it is getting closer, especially on the heels of new developments in small nuclear reactors (SMRs) which use fuel more efficiently than legacy reactors, produce virtually no greenhouse gases and generate much less waste that can be managed or recycled. Technologies to extract uranium from seawater breeders could supply energy needs for billions of years at stable costs, consistent with some interpretations of “renewable.”

While there was certainly phenomenal news to report on from every corner of the nuclear industry, both in the U.S. and abroad, there was an overabundance of headlines from the nuclear fuel chain, specifically on the topic of used nuclear fuel. We now have more companies looking into how best to utilize the energy stored within used nuclear fuel, companies developing permanent nuclear waste storage solutions, and an IPO to look forward to from one of the biggest names in used fuel handling.