Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste in Deep Horizontal Drillholes
Abstract
Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste can be disposed in deep horizontal drillholes in sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous rocks. Horizontal drillhole disposal has safety, operational and economic benefits: the repository is deep in the brine-saturated zone far below aquifers in a reducing environment of formations that can be shown to have been isolated from the surface for exceedingly long times; its depth provides safety against inadvertent intrusion, earthquakes and near-surface perturbations; it can be placed close to the reactors and interim storage facilities, minimizing transportation; disposal costs per ton of waste can be kept substantially lower than for mined repositories by its smaller size, reduced infrastructure needs and staged implementation; and, if desired, the waste could be retrieved using “fishing” technology. In the proposed disposal concept, corrosion-resistant canisters containing unmodified fuel assemblies from commercial reactors would be placed end-to-end in up to 50 cm diameter horizontal drillholes, a configuration that reduces mechanical stresses and keeps the temperatures below the boiling point of the brine. Other high-level wastes, such as capsules containing 137Cs and 90Sr, can be disposed in small-diameter horizontal drillholes. We provide an overview of this novel disposal concept and its technology, discuss some of its safety aspectsmore »
- Authors:
-
[2];
- Deep Isolation Inc., Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Finsterle GeoConsulting, Kensington, CA (United States)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Akron, OH (United States)
- Geochemistry Consultant, Lafayette, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1572822
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Energies
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 1996-1073
- Publisher:
- MDPI AG
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Citation Formats
Muller, Richard A., Finsterle, Stefan, Grimsich, John, Baltzer, Rod, Muller, Elizabeth A., Rector, James W., Payer, Joe, and Apps, John. Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste in Deep Horizontal Drillholes. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.3390/en12112052.
Muller, Richard A., Finsterle, Stefan, Grimsich, John, Baltzer, Rod, Muller, Elizabeth A., Rector, James W., Payer, Joe, & Apps, John. Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste in Deep Horizontal Drillholes. United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12112052
Muller, Richard A., Finsterle, Stefan, Grimsich, John, Baltzer, Rod, Muller, Elizabeth A., Rector, James W., Payer, Joe, and Apps, John. Wed .
"Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste in Deep Horizontal Drillholes". United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12112052. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1572822.
@article{osti_1572822,
title = {Disposal of High-Level Nuclear Waste in Deep Horizontal Drillholes},
author = {Muller, Richard A. and Finsterle, Stefan and Grimsich, John and Baltzer, Rod and Muller, Elizabeth A. and Rector, James W. and Payer, Joe and Apps, John},
abstractNote = {Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste can be disposed in deep horizontal drillholes in sedimentary, metamorphic or igneous rocks. Horizontal drillhole disposal has safety, operational and economic benefits: the repository is deep in the brine-saturated zone far below aquifers in a reducing environment of formations that can be shown to have been isolated from the surface for exceedingly long times; its depth provides safety against inadvertent intrusion, earthquakes and near-surface perturbations; it can be placed close to the reactors and interim storage facilities, minimizing transportation; disposal costs per ton of waste can be kept substantially lower than for mined repositories by its smaller size, reduced infrastructure needs and staged implementation; and, if desired, the waste could be retrieved using “fishing” technology. In the proposed disposal concept, corrosion-resistant canisters containing unmodified fuel assemblies from commercial reactors would be placed end-to-end in up to 50 cm diameter horizontal drillholes, a configuration that reduces mechanical stresses and keeps the temperatures below the boiling point of the brine. Other high-level wastes, such as capsules containing 137Cs and 90Sr, can be disposed in small-diameter horizontal drillholes. We provide an overview of this novel disposal concept and its technology, discuss some of its safety aspects and compare it to mined repositories and the deep vertical borehole disposal concept.},
doi = {10.3390/en12112052},
journal = {Energies},
number = 11,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed May 29 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Wed May 29 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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Works referencing / citing this record:
Corrosion Performance of Engineered Barrier System in Deep Horizontal Drillholes
journal, April 2019
- Payer, Joe H.; Finsterle, Stefan; Apps, John A.
- Energies, Vol. 12, Issue 8