Deep Isolation Nuclear, an innovator in nuclear waste disposal technology, on January 13 said the company has successfully completed its Project SAVANT (Sequential Advancement of Technology for Deep Borehole Disposal), a two-year research initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). The project found that Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System (UCS) and borehole casing materials can sufficiently resist corrosion to safely store nuclear waste material, further validating the design and advancing the company toward a full-scale deep borehole disposal demonstration.
Building on the project’s central objective, the project SAVANT team evaluated corrosion performance under realistic thermal, chemical, and mechanical stressors expected in a deep borehole environment. These data sets strengthen the scientific basis for Deep Isolation’s UCS and reinforce confidence in the system’s design life.
“This important study shows that Deep Isolation has achieved another critical milestone in the development of a safe method of disposing of radioactive nuclear waste —something the world critically needs,” said Rod Baltzer, Deep Isolation’s president and CEO. “Nuclear energy is facing a growing challenge. Global nuclear power capacity is forecast to increase by more than 300 GW by 2050, yet the world has not permanently disposed of any of the spent fuel it has created over the last 70 years. We believe our deep borehole technology will ultimately be the solution for safely and permanently disposal of nuclear waste deep underground, a solution the world needs.”
“The project SAVANT data significantly strengthens our understanding of how UCS and borehole system materials perform under the conditions expected in a deep geologic environment,” said Jesse Sloane, executive VP of Engineering at Deep Isolation. “These results demonstrate wide margins of safety for the public and reinforce the robustness of our design approach. With these results in hand, we are well positioned to advance into larger scale testing.”
Stan Gingrich, principal engineer at Amentum and a project SAVANT collaborator, emphasized the importance of materials research in advancing disposal readiness. “The corrosion testing produced data representative of deep borehole disposal environments,” said Gingrich. “Our collaboration with Deep Isolation, including our co-authored paper on the results of materials under high temperature and pressure conditions [presented at Waste Management Symposia 2025], underscores how phased testing can bring innovative disposal solutions closer to reality.”
The project also incorporated supply chain research and cost estimation developed in partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). These findings highlight opportunities to build domestic manufacturing pathways for canisters, casing materials, and deployment equipment that could accelerate commercial readiness and reduce lifecycle costs for future disposal facilities.
Project SAVANT supports a broader industry effort to modernize the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. As nations expand advanced reactor deployment, durable and predictable disposal pathways are increasingly essential to long-term planning and public confidence. The project SAVANT findings provide new, data-driven insights that can guide future regulatory, commercial, and technical decision-making for deep borehole disposal.
—This content was provided by the communications team for Deep Isolation.
