Nuclear startup Deep Isolation has partnered with Halliburton to bury radioactive waste approximately 2 miles underground in 5,000-pound canisters using advanced directional drilling techniques originally developed for oil and gas extraction. Over 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel currently sit in temporary storage across about 80 sites in more than 30 U.S. states, with no permanent solution since the failure of the Yucca Mountain repository project in Nevada. A test well will be drilled early next year in central Texas to demonstrate the technique, which requires a borehole of about 22 inches in diameter, nearly triple the size of a typical oil well. Deep Isolation, which went public in July with a market cap of nearly 300 million dollars, targets commercial deployment in the early 2030s, as the Trump administration has committed to a fourfold increase in nuclear power by 2050.
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