Berkeley, Calif.-based small modular reactor developer Deep Fission installed and retrieved its full-size prototype reactor canister from a borehole in Kansas, the company said Sept. 10.
According to the company’s press release, Deep Fission’s workers lowered its 20-foot canister to 100 feet below ground in a 34-inch wide borehole and then brought it back up to ground level. It said the demonstration took place on Sept. 3 and was conducted with commercial drilling equipment and drilling crew. Deep Fission received the prototype canister at its Parsons, Kan. site in July.
As a prototype, the canister is a full-size, non-nuclear version of the reactor core for the Gravity reactor the company is designing. The Gravity reactor is designed to be a standard pressurized water reactor with a power output of 15 megawatts.
“The most important thing about this demonstration is what we did not have to do,” CEO and Co-Founder of Deep Fission Elizabeth Muller said in the release. “We did not have to develop new technology. We used a rig and rigging that is commercially available in the field today, and our reactor uses pressurized water technology that has been operating in the nuclear industry for decades. Our innovation is in how we put proven pieces together, not in inventing something that has never been built.”
The demonstration comes after the Department of Energy approved the company’s nuclear safety design agreement for its Gravity reactor under the reactor pilot program in August. Deep Fission plans to deploy its first Gravity reactor in Kansas.