Atomic Show #327 – Rod Baltzer, CEO, Deep Isolation

Deep Isolation is one of Nucleation Capital’s more impactful portfolio companies because its technology can enable greater success for most of the rest of the companies – and for the entire nuclear energy sector.

The company has been developing, testing and refining its systematic approach to nuclear waste disposal for a decade. Despite the fact that it is addressing one of the few remaining items that limits the acceptance of nuclear energy and its ability to rapidly expand to supply the clean firm power that our industrial society needs to thrive, few people have heard of the company. Even fewer include its technology in the discussions surrounding the inevitable question in nuclear energy discussions “What do we do with the waste?”

Deep Isolation is founded on a brilliant technical inspiration by Dr. Richard Muller. Recognized the commercial potential of the invention Muller teamed up with his daughter, Elizabeth Muller to transform the idea into a venture . They realized that deep geologic disposal is a nearly universally accepted – among scientific and technical experts – method to permanently dispose of high level radioactive materials.

Muller recognized that one significant challenge was the difficulty of siting and building conventional mined repositories. These repositories would need to meet completely different criteria that those that governed traditional materials and fuels mines, making reuse of existing mines difficult, if not impossible. Specially created mines producing no commercially valuable materials would be extraordinarily expensive to develop.

The cost of creating mined repositories stimulated most nations to plan for one or very few repositories, adding to the political cost and the transportation cost associated with siting and operating the repository.

Muller’s brilliant solution to these challenges was to take advantage of the fact that tens of thousands of very deep holes were being drilled every year by the established oil and gas industry. Not only were those holes being bored several thousand feet deep – well below all existing aquifers, but also the drillers had invented and refined techniques for gradually bending the holes into a horizontal direction.

These horizontal borings – often called “laterals” – are used in the hydrocarbon extraction business to gain access to far more extensive volumes of fuel-containing rock. For purposes of radioactive waste disposal, the laterals provide a large volume into which containers of high level waste – in a variety of forms – can be placed and isolated for millions of years.

As a result of drilling tens of thousands of wells in a highly competitive business, the drilling industry has become very skilled at creating high-quality, cost-effective tools and efficiently employing them. The resulting technology ecosystem can be efficiently used in a modular, distributed fashion, enabling multiple, strategically sited repositories. That allows waste to be permanently stored near where it was generated. This concept will lower transportation costs while addressing several legitimate political objections.

Rod Baltzer, the CEO of Deep Isolation, visited the Atomic Show for episode #327. We discussed the above in even greater detail. I believe you will find the show to be valuable and informative. Please use the comment section to ask questions or engage in discussion. Comments will close in 2 weeks.

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