US firm to bury nuclear reactors 1-mile underground to power data centers

[Elderberry]

Yahoo News by Aman Tripathi 1/8/2025

Offering a unique approach to powering data centers through nuclear energy, Deep Fission and Endeavour Energy have announced a strategic partnership. Their agreement plans to bury small modular reactors (SMRs) a mile underground.

“As part of the agreement, Endeavour and Deep Fission have committed to co-developing 2 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear energy to power Endeavour’s expanding global portfolio of Edged data centers,” said Deep Fission in a press release. Notably, the first reactors are expected to be operational by 2029.

Deep Fission, a nuclear energy company, is pioneering this new approach. They have designed small nuclear reactors that are lowered into 30-inch boreholes drilled a mile deep.

Innovative approach with several benefits

This method takes advantage of the natural geological properties at that depth. The earth provides robust containment and constant pressure. This eliminates the need for the massive concrete structures typically used for containment in aboveground nuclear reactors.

More: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-firm-bury-nuclear-reactors-131344401.html

[Smokin Joe]

Depends on site geology at depth.  In places, 5000 ft. will put you in the middle of water bearing sands, not containment.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Unique. But my questions are

1 how does one service something like this?  None will wish to bring radioactive elements back to the surface that will contaminate everything.

2. If this technology works, why not do this mire universally instead of just data centers?

[Smokin Joe]

Those reactors will generate heat. Oil and gas are generated in rocks by the heat and pressure to which the rocks are subjected, generally at depths of 10000 ft. or so for oil, and deeper for mostly natural gas (the heat breaks down the long chain hydrocarbons and little oil is found, depending on the basin). Both can occur at more shallow depths, but often the oil found is a result of previous burial at depth, now more shallow because of tectonic activity and erosion. Natural gas can be found more shallow, commonly emanating from coal seams, but also through migration toward the surface.

With that in mind, will the heat given off by these reactors be sufficient to bring sediments in the vicinity to thermal maturity, that is, to generate oil or gas, and if so, how is that going to be dealt with (a potential problem that could actually become a byproduct if not radioactive as a result of the reactor).

For instance, those same reactors could be buried in the Green River Shale of the Piceance Basin in Colorado, and possibly solve the problem of how to extract oil from the shale there.

[Hoodat]

So, above ground oil pipelines are a threat to underground aquifers.   But burying a nuclear reactor one mile below the surface is not?

[Smokin Joe]

So, above ground oil pipelines are a threat to underground aquifers.   But burying a nuclear reactor one mile below the surface is not?

It all depends on what 'they' want.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Those reactors will generate heat. Oil and gas are generated in rocks by the heat and pressure to which the rocks are subjected, generally at depths of 10000 ft. or so for oil, and deeper for mostly natural gas (the heat breaks down the long chain hydrocarbons and little oil is found, depending on the basin). Both can occur at more shallow depths, but often the oil found is a result of previous burial at depth, now more shallow because of tectonic activity and erosion. Natural gas can be found more shallow, commonly emanating from coal seams, but also through migration toward the surface.

With that in mind, will the heat given off by these reactors be sufficient to bring sediments in the vicinity to thermal maturity, that is, to generate oil or gas, and if so, how is that going to be dealt with (a potential problem that could actually become a byproduct if not radioactive as a result of the reactor).

For instance, those same reactors could be buried in the Green River Shale of the Piceance Basin in Colorado, and possibly solve the problem of how to extract oil from the shale there.

It will of course generate heat which will affect the hydrocarbons in the vicinity, including any shales.  What is the question is how broad the area will be.

Experience of Project Rulison and Gas Buggy, in which nuclear bombs were placed downhole and detonated with intention of creating massive fractures within low permeability horizons, showed a very limited area being affected.

The earth just absorbed the enormous shock like it was nothing.

I expect any heat by nuclear reactors placed downhole to have the same reaction.

A nothing burger.

Forty-Five Years Ago, the Government Used Subterranean Nukes to Dig for Natural Gas
https://www.vice.com/en/article/45-years-ago-colorado-fracked-with-subterranean-nuclear-bombs-1015/

[Smokin Joe]

It will of course generate heat which will affect the hydrocarbons in the vicinity, including any shales.  What is the question is how broad the area will be.

Experience of Project Rulison and Gas Buggy, in which nuclear bombs were placed downhole and detonated with intention of creating massive fractures within low permeability horizons, showed a very limited area being affected.

The earth just absorbed the enormous shock like it was nothing.

I expect any heat by nuclear reactors placed downhole to have the same reaction.

A nothing burger.

Forty-Five Years Ago, the Government Used Subterranean Nukes to Dig for Natural Gas
https://www.vice.com/en/article/45-years-ago-colorado-fracked-with-subterranean-nuclear-bombs-1015/

Project Rulison, the subsurface nuke detonated up on the Book Cliffs near Rifle, CO, created a big glass bubble downhole, effectively fraccing the formation, but the gas that did make it out was too hot to handle (as in far too radioactive). It was P&A'd, and the radioactive surface structures dismantled or entombed on site. Some of the lower level stuff was dumped south and east of Rifle, and sits behind a fence warning of the contents of the fill there.
I spent some time in the area when I worked wells to the Southeast on the Grand Mesa in the Cozette and Corcoran sands.

That wasn't the slow heat a reactor can produce. Remember the Parachute, CO facility that baked the shale in a kiln to release the oil? (Unocal ran it in the 90s) It wasn't economically successful. But the waste heat from a reactor (much lower intensity than a nuclear explosion) might be, as long as the oil or gas isn't radioactive when produced.

[Fishrrman]

I'm not a scientist.

But something just whispers into my ear that this scheme is a cockamamy, terrible idea...

[Smokin Joe]

I'm not a scientist.

But something just whispers into my ear that this scheme is a cockamamy, terrible idea...

Mine, too, but in order to show that more definitively, you have to try to predict all the unanticipated consequences of such a move, not to mention the expense of getting it down there..

[Bigun]

I'm not a scientist.

But something just whispers into my ear that this scheme is a cockamamy, terrible idea...

  

[libertybele]

I'm not a scientist.

But something just whispers into my ear that this scheme is a cockamamy, terrible idea...

Agree.....terrible  idea.