solution to a growing worldwide problem

 

The worldwide nuclear industry is curently storing approximately 240,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear reactors, spent fuel pools, and other government installations accross the globe. An additional 7,000 metric tons of spent fuel is generated each year by worldwide nuclear reactors. Millions of gallons of weapons related radioactive waste (liquid and sludge) is stored in underground and surface tanks. The risk of these materials leaking into the biosphere and harming human and animal populations is real. This risk was realized at Chernobyl (April 1986),  Hanford (2010), Three Mile Island (March 1979), and Fukushima Daiichi (March 2011).

 

The most recent accident was the catastrophic 2011 Fukushima accident. The Japanese government evacuated more than 100,000 people many of which still have not returned home. Radiation leaked into the atmosphere and into sea, which impacted crops, animals on land and sea, homes and the human population.

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GrandAbyss has engineered and patented a waste disposal solution called a GravityFracture. Applying hydraulic pressure to a rock formation to enhance flow capactiy has been used in waste disosal applications for 60 years. HIstorically waste was injected into a specific interval within the earth and injected waste would hopefully stay within the designated interval. The GravityFracture and the associated patent changes the geometry and risk profile associated with nuclear / hazardous waste disposal. The true value of the GravityFracture delivers the assurance and mathmatical certainity that the waste stream will continue descending into the earth getting further from the biosphere and potentail for human contact.

 

The GravityFracture will eliminate nuclear waste from the biosphere safely and permanently by placing the nuclear material into the crystalline rock layer of the earth (granite). A deep wellbore is drilled and a fracture is initiated in the granite. The fracture is converted into a GravityFracture by adding a weighted material to the water and pumping it into the fracture causing the fracture to descend deeper into the earth because the weighted slurry is heavier than the surrounding granite. The wellbore is now ready to accept nuclear waste or other waste streams.

 

Nuclear waste will be mixed with a weighting material at the surface then injected into the wellbore. Waste material will be injected down the specially constructed wellbore and into the granite at a depth of approximately 15,000'. The waste exits the wellbore into the GravityFracture and descend deeper into the earth and further from the biosphere and potential human interaction. The waste is now disposed of permanently.

 

The U.S. Government has been conducting research and pushing the nuclear waste disposal conversation toward deep borehole disposal (DBD). The scientific community has presented DBD as a viable option for nuclear waste disposal. The GravityFracture is an extension of this idea utilizing the same rock formation, the Granite, as the ultimate disposal interval for the waste material.