PHOENIX – Another company indicated Monday it would be ready to bid on an anticipated procurement from the Department of Energy to design a facility for interim storage of nuclear waste.
“We are interested in interim storage,” Rod Baltzer, chief operating officer for Deep Isolation, told RadWaste Monitor. “With our design, we do think you could call it interim storage. … It is retrievable, so you could take the canister down, place it deep underground, and then you could retrieve it back up if you need to.”
Testifying last week before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Assistant DOE Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal said the agency had drafted a request for proposals for basic design of an interim storage facility. The procurement notice had not been published as of Friday afternoon, and DOE did not respond to a query regarding the schedule.
The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy would in the upcoming fiscal 2021 receive $27.5 million for an Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program, under the Trump administration federal budget request issued in February. The program replaces the White House’s efforts in three prior spending plans to fund resumption of licensing for the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada. Congress rejected each request.
The new funding is intended to “develop and implement a robust storage program,” starting Oct. 1, covering operations including early design and development of measures to identify possible site locations. The administration is looking for “innovative” options, according to both President Donald Trump and the Energy Department.
“We do think this is an innovative design, we’d love to participate in some of those programs,” Baltzer said on the sidelines of the annual Waste Management Symposia, where he presented the findings of a company study on radiological safety of a horizontal drillhole for holding spent nuclear fuel.
Deep Isolation, based in Berkeley, Calif., offers “directional drilling” that would place waste canisters within 18-inch horizontal holes far underground – at 1,000 feet or deeper within stable rock. The technique would apply technologies derived from oil and gas drilling for radioactive waste storage.
The Energy Department is responsible for disposal of the nation’s stockpile of high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations and spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Roughly 100,000 metric tons of waste remains stored around the nation, largely at the point of generation, long past the congressional mandated Jan. 31, 1998, deadline for DOE to begin disposal.
In the continued absence of a repository for the material, interim storage has gained steam in recent years as an option to consolidate waste in a limited number of locations until disposal is available.
Two companies have already designed more-traditional means for storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Both have applied for 40-year licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their facilities. Interim Storage Partners plans above-ground storage of up to 40,000 metric tons of waste in Andrews County, Texas. Holtec International would place potentially more than 100,000 metric tons in underground storage in Lea County, N.M.
A Holtec spokesman last week said the company would also be interested in bidding on the eventual Energy Department RFP. Just this week, staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission preliminarily recommended issuing a license for the New Mexico facility.
Interim Storage Partners has not publicly said whether it, too, would pursue the DOE design contract. The venture is a joint partnership of nuclear company Orano and radioactive waste disposal provider Waste Control Specialists, where Baltzer worked in several executive roles for 14 years. He was the Dallas-based company’s president and CEO until January 2018, when it was bought by private-equity firm J.F. Lehman.
Meanwhile, Deep Isolation is conducting its third round of fund-raising as it works to secure its first contract this year, Baltzer said.
The company raised $14 million in its angel and seed funding rounds from “high net worth private individuals,” Baltzer said. In January, it began a Series A round that seeks $15 million plus another $5 million in engineering services and other in-kind contributions. That effort should continue through the summer, according to Baltzer.
“For the initial money we received, part of that has been staffing up the company, so now we’ve got industry experts, people who are focused on siting, engagement with national groups, environmental groups, and others, as well as development of the technology,” he said.
Baltzer declined to discuss how much of the $14 million has been spent. The company now has roughly 20 full- and part-time staffers. It has secured five patents for its technologies and is seeking five more.
Management has conducted contract discussions with organizations in 10 nations on five continents, encompassing Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Deep Isolation said Thursday it could not discuss the nations involved.
New funds brought in from the Series A would continue that work, along with supporting further development of the technology and the sales process, Baltzer said.
Initial contracts would likely involve conducting “foundation studies” for clients – studying a given nation’s radioactive waste stream, its geology, the cost and budget for its potential disposal program, and how that might compare against Deep Isolation’s offering.
That study could proceed to a demonstration disposal using non-radioactive material and then potentially to an actual waste job, Baltzer said.
