The nuclear waste disposal startup Deep Isolation has struck a deal with Navarro Research and Engineering, a major federal contractor, to license its technology for storing radioactive material in deep bore holes, Latitude Media has learned.
As part of the deal, Navarro will have access to Deep Isolation’s portfolio of nearly 90 patents for dealing with nuclear and hazardous waste management for the private research lab’s facilities in Tennessee and Idaho. In particular, the licensing allows Navarro to use Deep Isolation’s patented borehole repository systems and canisters for disposing of waste materials from its work with federal agencies including the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Department of Defense.
The agreement — which Deep Isolation said could bring in annual revenue of at least $300,000 per year, or more depending on how much its technology is used — comes amid a push to revive construction of nuclear reactors, which is putting pressure on the existing waste storage on site at national labs and power plants across the U.S. The deal enables “broader commercialization of our novel technology,” said Rod Baltzer, the chief executive of Deep Isolation, which “safely and permanently stores nuclear waste deep underground.”
“This is a big step in rolling out our permanent nuclear waste storage solution,” Baltzer told Latitude. “Navarro has a strong presence in both states and is headquartered in Tennessee so they have better reach in these areas than Deep Isolation would have on our own.”
The exploration of new ways of storing radioactive waste is happening as other nuclear startups, including Oklo and Curio LV, are working to commercialize technology to recycle spent nuclear fuel. While countries such as Russia and France reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract useful uranium from the waste and shrink the volume of remaining radioactive material, the U.S. abandoned its first commercial recycling effort in the 1970s. In the years since, there has never been another serious attempt at creating an industry; however, the Trump administration has recently signaled its support for reprocessing. Oklo, meanwhile, announced plans this month to build a $1.7 billion recycling facility in Tennessee to generate fresh fuel for its microreactors from used uranium pellets.
Even if reprocessing takes off, though, there will still be radioactive material in need of a long-term disposal solution. Finland opened the world’s first permanent repository for nuclear waste on Okliluoto Island. Sweden and Canada have since made plans to follow suit with their own deep underground storage designed to entomb waste for at least tens of thousands of years.
For years, the U.S. had plans for a major repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, and construction started under President George W. Bush. But President Barack Obama yanked funding for the effort that was widely seen as a favor to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who opposed the repository. Federal law requires the government to handle nuclear waste, and dictates that Yucca Mountain must be the first site completed. Until that legislation changes, federal efforts for a permanent waste site remain stalled.
In the meantime, the spent fuel nuclear power plants produce sits in pools or in dry storage casks on site at atomic generating stations. The overall volume is minimal compared to the waste produced per megawatt of other electricity sources. For now, the leading industry solution is to take spent fuel rods out of pools after a few years and let them sit in above-ground concrete vessels designed mostly by the nuclear company Holtec International, whose storage casks comprise nearly 60% of the market.
That said, if reactor developers succeed in deploying vast numbers of new reactors across the country and overseas, demand for solutions to recycle, store, and bury spent fuel will soar. “They’re separate solutions,” Chris Gadomski, the chief nuclear analyst at the consultancy BloombergNEF, told Latitude. “There’s room for both to coexist.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on September 18 to 1) add commentary from Deep Isolation, and 2) correct how much annual revenue the agreement should come in; it will be at least $300,000, not $330,000.
