A scheduled drilling effort to construct a test borehole in the deep shale formations of North Dakota is one of the first moves in the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s formal effort to develop new nuclear storage options for low-level radioactive waste fuel from nuclear powerplants, now often housed on-site in temporary facilities, such as cooling ponds and aboveground concrete casks.
“This is an important first step to increasing our scientific understanding of the potential uses for crystalline rock formations, including the feasibility of boreholes as an option for long-term nuclear waste disposal,” said DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz in a January statement.