Deep Isolation

Deep Isolation will develop a universal canister design compatible with waste acceptance criteria for mined and borehole repositories to support cost-effective nuclear waste disposal options and provide flexibility for a broad range of advanced fuel forms and recycling products. The conventional nuclear fuel dry storage canisters in use today will likely require repackaging or reconfiguring before disposal. Deep Isolation’s new universal canister will create an elemental waste form component that will decouple the interdependent constraints between storage, transport, and disposal. The value proposition of this approach is to minimize the long-term costs of used fuel and waste management by packaging waste forms in small canisters that can be stored in dry storage systems (onsite or in a central location), transported to a geologic repository, and disposed without repackaging.

By identifying and addressing challenges at the back end of the fuel cycle before the deployment of future AR technologies, ONWARDS will: