GravityFracture / deep borehole disposal

The 2011 nuclear disaster at Fukushima underscores the need for both an emergency disposal solution at a nuclear power plant and a permanent disposal approach for nuclear waste managed at the surface. Since the late 1970s the U.S. and foreign governments and associated regulatory agencies have been evaluating the use of deep boreholes to place and permanently store nuclear waste. After the Obama Administration defunded and halted development related to the geologic repository of Yucca Mountain, deep borehole disposal has become a leading disposal option.

GrandAbyss has conceived and patented the GravityFracture. 

A GravityFracture is created by doing the following:

• drill a deep wellbore into the earth that penetrates the granite (approximately 15,000' deep)

• run steel pipe to the bottom of wellbore and construct wellbore to satisfy all regulatory requirements

• introduce a hydraulic fracture into the granite formation

• create a heavy slurry by weighting fluid to be heavier than the granite formation targeted for injection

• pump weighted slurry under pressure and map induced fracture

• confirm GravityFracture transported weighted fluid deeper into the earth than the bottom of wellbore. A fracture mapping service will be used to confirm fracture growth, direction and extent

• the GravityFracture and wellbore are ready to accept nuclear waste or act as a standby disposal method to handle an emergency at a nuclear reactor. 

If the Fukushima nuclear reactor facility had a GravityFracture equipped wellbore on site in 2011, the amount of radioactive cooling water pumped into the sea and stored at the surface would have been eliminated.