TULSA, Okla. — Energy secretary Jeff Starling hosted a Sept. 30 info session at Oral Roberts University, joined by company reps from the campaign to get the U.S. Department of Energy to build a nuclear waste storage and reprocessing campus in Oklahoma.
By the end of this year, the federal agency plans to announce three states to have one or multiple sites to dispose and reprocess nuclear waste.
Oklahoma wants to be one of those states, and would call its site the Oklahoma Nuclear Innovation Campus (ONIC), taking up a thousand acres on the surface, and up to 2,000 acres underground for storage.
Click here for the full presentation file from Sec. Starling, Deep Isolation CEO Rob Baltzer, and OU research scientist Dr. Kuhika Gupta.
“There were a couple differentiating factors for Oklahoma (to apply)," Sec. Starling told media afterwards. "One is our oil & gas background. We’re an energy state. We are comfortable with energy. When you look at some of the borehole technology that’s needed where you do long, lateral drilling, that’s something we’ve done here. That’s been part of our energy solution now for 25 years. We know how to drill wells down a mile and over as best as anybody.”
Tulsa-based company Occlusion Solutions is one of those companies with oil & gas experience, and has rebranded as Occlusion Nuclear Solutions.
An Oklahoma site, if chosen, would also use "spent fuel processing," AKA recycling nuclear material, for the first time ever on or under American soil.
As for getting underground, the deep borehole technology would be provided by the Plano, Texas company Deep Isolation, led by Baltzer, a Talala native.
"We typically would not want to put spent nuclear fuel where you thought you might be drilling for natural gas, or oil, or other things," Baltzer answered on where drilling would have to avoid. "So you’d want to keep some distance there.”
Starling, who also ran an unsuccessful bid for Oklahoma Attorney General earlier this year, pitches the proposed campus as an opportunity for Oklahoma communities. Additionally, he said multiple municipalities have already done the pitching themselves because they see economic potential beyond the proposed 200 jobs from the campus itself.
- WATCH: Energy secretary and Deep Isolation CEO speak on Oklahoma nuclear waste campus pitch
Energy secretary and Deep Isolation CEO speak on Oklahoma nuclear waste campus pitch
"Whether our campus is in one location or whether it’s in a couple different locations, you’re going to ultimately see either things directly tied to this campus or ancillary industries that come because of this campus in multiple parts across the state,” Starling said.
If chosen as one of the three states, the Oklahoma site or sites are estimated to begin operating by the early 2030s.
There are some state legislative hurdles to clear before any construction could begin in a year's time, but the secretary suggested that would be resolved with bipartisan bills in the 61st Oklahoma Legislature.
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