A Hanford-focused consulting firm was acquired by Deep Isolation, a California company developing a new method of spent nuclear fuel disposal.
Deep Isolation bought privately-owned, 23 year-old Freestone Environmental Services of Richland, Wash., the Berkeley, Calif., firm announced Tuesday. Deep Isolation declined to reveal the price. Freestone has 25 employees.
Deep Isolation plans to take fuel assemblies from reactors and put them in 14-foot-long canisters that are 9 to 13 inches in diameter. These would be inserted in vertical boreholes — 14 inches to 18 inches in diameter — that extend anywhere from a couple thousand feet to a couple miles deep. Such a borehole would gradually curve to become a narrow, horizontal tunnel that could possibly extend for 2 miles. After the horizontal section is filled with canisters, the vertical boreholes would be filled and sealed with rock, bentonite, and other materials.
Deep Isolation is seeking contracts in the United States, Mexico, South America, Europe, Africa, the Far East and the Middle East. It had not signed any disposal contracts as of Wednesday.
Freestone is an environmental consultant on water, ground and subterranean matters for private and public clients. Its clients include the Department of Energy at the Hanford Site, the former plutonium production complex now being cleaned up by the agency’s Office of Environmental Management.
In a press release, Deep Isolation Chief Operating Officer Rod Baltzer said the acquisition “gives Deep Isolation access to experts with a wealth of real-world nuclear waste clean-up experience and opens up Freestone to new opportunities through our global network,” said.
In an email, Deep Isolation spokeswoman Kari Hulac said: “Their expertise will expand our own to help characterize whether a particular region’s geology might be suitable for deep borehole disposal. We’ve seen quite an uptick of interest among governments worldwide in our solution, and this acquisition builds our bench strength, enabling us to better help our clients pursue disposal options.”
In a press release, Freestone president Steve Airhart said: “Having been involved in work at Hanford and the commercial nuclear industry, we know firsthand how critical it is to find a safe, permanent home for nuclear waste.”
Deep Isolation’s business model is that nations with two to six reactors would be ideal customers.
According to the 2020 World Nuclear Industry Status Report, the following European, Middle Eastern and African nations fit a one-to-six-reactor description: Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, Hungary, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Many of the reactors in these nations are still under construction or still on the drawing board.
Deep Isolation has offices in Tokyo and London.
