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Groundbreaking set for next week on underground nuclear reactor in Parsons
Groundbreaking set for next week on underground nuclear reactor in Parsons
Under, Not In, My Back Yard
Deep Fission, a company that is seeking to adapt modern petroleum drilling technology to nuclear energy, is breaking ground in southeastern Kansas for its first unit.
It plans to achieve its first criticality, at a depth of about one mile, by July 4, the goal set in President Trump’s executive order. This is a small modular reactor, but very small; it will fit in a borehole that is 30 inches in diameter, which is less than the diameter of a major sewer line. The idea is to use billions of tons of rock and soil, provided by nature, as a containment.
The reactor operates under 2,250 pounds of pressure per square inch, in the same ballpark as traditional pressurized water reactors. In this case, the pressure is supplied by a column of water a mile high. The fuel closely resembles fuel in a pressurized water reactor, but the core has only four assemblies, giving the reactor an unusual geometry.
The reactor will pipe clean steam to the surface, where a turbine-generator will convert it to 15 megawatts of power. Deep Fission says it could locate 10 reactors under a quarter-acre of land.
Another company, Deep Isolation, is exploring the possibility of digging deep wells for disposal of spent fuel. That technique also borrows modern petroleum well-drilling techniques, and relies in part on natural rock and soil.
Deep Fission says it has Letters of Intent with customers for 12.5 gigawatts. But it is still in pre-application discussions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In Kansas it will be operating under a Department of Energy pilot program.
The pilot site is a 14,000-acre industrial park, a former Army ammunition plant. The site is also a candidate for a TerraPower Natrium reactor. (The first Natrium will be built in Kemmerer, Wyoming.)
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