Underground Nuclear Reactors? Inside Deep Fission’s Energy Solution

Summary

Inevitable (an MCJ Podcast)

Episode: Underground Nuclear Reactors? Inside Deep Fission’s Energy Solution

Date: April 10, 2025
Host: Cody Sims
Guest: Liz Muller, CEO & Co-founder, Deep Fission

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores Deep Fission’s ambitious plan to revolutionize nuclear energy by moving reactor cores one mile underground. Host Cody Sims interviews Liz Muller, whose prior company, Deep Isolation, focused on nuclear waste disposal deep underground. They discuss how lessons learned from nuclear waste management, conventional oil and gas drilling, and the economics of civil construction for nuclear plants inform Deep Fission’s innovative approach. Key topics include cost reduction, safety, fuel supply, regulatory challenges, the changing energy landscape, and the future of nuclear innovation.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. Deep Isolation: The Waste Problem as a Precursor

• Background: Liz recaps her previous venture, Deep Isolation, which tackled nuclear waste disposal using deep boreholes and techniques borrowed from oil and gas.
  • Key Insight: “We’re talking about a mile underground. You don’t need humans underground… You can do it both faster and more flexibly, but also significantly cheaper.” (Liz Muller, 01:37)
  • Differentiator: Unlike oil and gas, no pressurization or fracking is involved—just drilling.
• Waste Recycling: France and others reprocess nuclear waste but still require permanent disposal solutions (03:48).

2. Deep Fission’s Core Innovation

• ‘Aha’ Moment: Customer inquiry into what happens if fresh fuel is accidentally placed underground led to the realization that boreholes provide both pressure and containment needed for nuclear reactions.
  • Quote: “…about 80% of the cost of nuclear power is in this physical construction… What is the construction to do? Well, it’s really two things: it’s to create 160 atmospheres of pressure… and it’s also for containment… Here we were in a borehole a mile underground, and we know we have amazing containment.” (04:19–05:30)
• Technical Layout: Reactors are housed in 30-inch diameter boreholes, with each hole holding a small modular reactor (~15 MW). Multiple holes can be arrayed to scale up, ideal for data centers’ high demand (07:44–08:32).
  • Memorable Visual: “If you use nothing but nuclear power… the waste that you would generate would fit inside one soda can.” (Liz Muller, 09:03)
• Drilling Cost: Around $6–8M per borehole, with costs dropping in bulk (09:45).

3. Safety, Fuel, and Regulatory Approach

• Fuel Choice: Deep Fission favors conventional 5% enriched uranium (“pressurized water reactor fuel”) because of a robust, established supply chain, avoiding HALEU or unproven fuels (10:55).
  • “We already have a mature supply chain… not trying to do anything new at this stage.” (Liz Muller, 10:55)
• Comparison with SMRs:
  • Above-ground SMRs still require significant construction for containment; Deep Fission’s underground model removes this major cost factor (12:17).
  • Advanced (non-light water) reactors try to avoid high-pressure needs but face supply chain and licensing challenges.

4. Enhanced Geothermal vs. Underground Nuclear

• Versus Geothermal: Geothermal’s limited heat extraction and slow replenishment contrast with placing an active nuclear heat source at depth, providing higher output per borehole.
  • “Sometimes I refer to Deep Fission as enhanced geothermal… but we’re putting a small nuclear reactor at the bottom of the borehole…” (14:33)
• Resilience & Safety: Underground siting offers exceptional protection from surface disasters, including wildfires or airplane impacts—“When you’re a mile underground… it’s not going to have any sort of impact on the actual nuclear technology.” (16:14)

5. Land Use, Security, and Operations

• Physical Footprint: Extremely small surface area needed (3 acres for 100 reactors); surface infrastructure is primarily turbines (18:04).
• Security: Physical security requirements may be reduced, but specifics await regulatory clarity—“It’s hard to come up with a scenario in which even if the worst case scenario were to happen, that it would have an impact on humans or the environment.” (18:42)
• Maintenance: Reactors have short (~2-year) fuel cycles. After completion, modules can be lowered to pre-drilled deeper sections of the borehole for permanent storage, minimizing handling and above-ground waste (19:52–22:08).
• Safety Design: Borehole and surrounding rock, not containers (canisters), provide the primary safety function—“The borehole and the rock really is the safety.” (21:38)

6. Commercial Progress and Cost Projections

• Customer & Commercialization: Deep Fission is working with Endeavour Data Centers, with an initial order for 2GW. First deployment will likely use moderate arrays (~75MW per module) (23:24–24:41).
• Cost Savings: Targeting total costs at roughly 20% of traditional nuclear. First-of-a-kind reactors predicted at $25M for 15MW—5–7 cents per kWh, with strong potential for reductions (25:07).
  • Quote: “We are expecting to be about 20% of the cost… $25 million per reactor… that’s a remarkably good price.” (25:07)
• Containment Assurance: Leverages deep isolation and oil/gas industry expertise to assure water table safety and effective containment (26:44–28:22).
• Funding: Raised a $4M pre-seed led by 8VC; seeking more capital to complete design, hire engineers, and secure first site (28:31).

7. The Future of Nuclear Innovation

• Trends & Drivers: Climate change, energy security (post-Ukraine), and rapid data center/AI growth are all increasing demand for reliable power (29:10).
  • “We need really big things… nuclear is one of the big things that we can do that will actually have significant impact.” (Liz Muller, 29:10)
• Industry Shift: Modular nuclear enables rapid “learning-by-doing,” more akin to solar deployment, aiding cost-downs and scalability.
  • “If you can be profitable on your first implementation… you will find more people who are willing to move forward.” (32:29)
• Consolidation Likely: The industry will likely see shakeouts based on market segment fit and profitability. Portable nuclear (like Radiant’s work) or ultra-low cost, high-reliability applications will coexist, but not all designs will survive (33:49).
  • “I think we are going to see a consolidation. I think not all technologies are going to make it through. I think it’s going to come largely down to who can be profitable, which is why there’s so much focus on cost.” (Liz Muller, 34:06)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Underground Containment:
  “One of the scenarios you have to consider in the nuclear industry is what happens if an airplane crashes into your facility. When you’re a mile underground… it’s not going to have any sort of impact on the actual nuclear technology.” (Liz Muller, 16:14)
• On Nuclear Waste Density:
  “If you use nothing but nuclear power to power everything… the waste… would fit inside one soda can.” (Liz Muller, 09:03)
• On Cost Savings:
  “80% of the cost of nuclear power is in this physical construction. What we’re doing is removing the need for surface construction.” (Liz Muller, 04:19)
• On Industry Outlook:
  “There’s tremendous excitement in the nuclear industry right now. It started with climate change… accelerated by the war in Ukraine… and now, data centers and AI.” (Liz Muller, 29:10)
• On Innovation Through Modularity:
  “It is both the first of a kind and the hundredth of a kind. And you’re learning as you go. That’s huge. That’s what we do right now for solar.” (Liz Muller, 31:46)

---

Segment Timestamps

• 00:00 – Introduction and Liz’s background in nuclear waste
• 04:19 – Inspiration for Deep Fission’s underground reactor concept
• 07:44 – Reactor size, modularity, and applications for data centers
• 09:45 – Drilling logistics and costs
• 10:55 – Fuel choice and supply chain rationale
• 12:17 – Cost and construction comparisons to SMRs and advanced reactors
• 14:33 – Comparison to/enhancement over geothermal
• 16:14 – Disaster resilience and underground safety advantages
• 18:04 – Surface footprint and land use
• 19:10 – Security, safety, and maintenance protocol
• 21:36 – On-site waste management by lowering spent reactors
• 23:24 – Commercial progress with first customer (data centers)
• 24:41 – Cost breakdown and economic outlook
• 25:07 – Detailed cost and price-per-kWh expectations
• 29:10 – Broader trends driving nuclear’s resurgence
• 31:46 – Modularity, first-of-a-kind vs. nth-of-a-kind innovation
• 33:49 – Future industry consolidation and segments

---

Takeaway Summary

Liz Muller and Deep Fission are pioneering a fundamentally new way to make nuclear energy safer, cheaper, and more rapidly deployable by leveraging deep borehole containment and lessons from both the oil/gas and nuclear waste management sectors. With a practical focus on standard fuel and proven technology, the company is well-positioned to serve the booming demand for reliable data center power and beyond. Regulatory engagement has begun, initial customer commitments are in place, and—if successful—this could mark a significant transformation in how the world produces and thinks about nuclear energy.

---

For More Information

• Deep Fission is seeking connections with potential customers and interested observers.
• To learn more or get in touch: visit Deep Fission’s website or reach out to Liz Muller directly.
• Stay tuned for licensing and deployment progress in 2026–2029.

---

This summary was prepared to provide a detailed and engaging overview of the “Inevitable” podcast episode featuring Liz Muller.

Transcript

[Cody Sims]

Today on Inevitable, our guest is Liz Muller, CEO and co founder at Deep Fission. Deep Vision is pioneering a new approach to the traditional light water nuclear reactor, obviating the need for concrete and constructed containment by putting the reactor one mile underground. Liz was on the show over five years ago when she was building a business with a related concept to store nuclear waste deep underground. She recently raised a pre seed round for Deep vision led by 8 VC and I wanted to catch up with her and hear how the new company came to be and how she's approaching the problem. From McJ, I'm Cody Sims and this is Inevitable. Climate change is inevitable. It's already here, but so are the solutions shaping our future. Join us every week to learn from experts and entrepreneurs about the transition of energy and industry. Liz, welcome to the show.

[Liz Muller]

Thank you so much, Cody, Happy to be here.

[Cody Sims]

A repeat visit for you. You were on the show many years ago when Jason was hosting and you were on an earlier company that is sort of a sister company, I guess to what you're building now with Deep Vision, that being Deep Isolation. So give us a little bit of an update there on reminding listeners who maybe weren't listening to the show six years ago what Deep isolation is. And then we can start to talk about how you took your learnings from that into your new endeavor.

[Liz Muller]

So Deep Isolation is focused on solving the nuclear waste disposal problem. If anyone here is interested in nuclear power, they probably know that dinner conversations tend to go, well, you know, what about the nuclear waste problem? Why hasn't that been solved? And Deep Isolation's approach was, well, you don't have to do it the way that everyone has historically thought about disposing of nuclear waste. There are innovations you can take advantage of, particularly out of the oil and gas industry in terms of putting something into very deep isolation. We're talking about a mile underground. You don't need humans underground. And when you don't need humans underground, you don't need air, you don't need vast tunnels. And so you can do it both faster and more flexibly, but also signal significantly cheaper. And so that's what Deep Isolation is doing. Deep Isolation as a company still going really, really well today. So the CEO Rod Baltzer is working with customers around the world, still hasn't gotten to actual disposal yet. So that is still a couple of years out. But we have been doing real work with real customers on, you know, how are we going to dispose of a particular type of waste in a particular type of geology. So, so it's been great and you.

[Cody Sims]

Say taking inspiration from oil and gas. I suppose one of the things that people may not think about with oil and gas is if you're doing fracking or whatever, water comes back up from the well and ultimately likely gets injected into a permanent storage well. Would that be sort of. The idea here is you're taking the waste byproduct of the process and then finding a place to put it underground for permanent storage.

[Liz Muller]

One of the differences though is that there's no pressure involved in deep isolation. So when you're doing drilling for oil and gas, or, or certainly when you're disposing of the waste, you tend to pressurize the rock. You can also crack the rock. That's what the fracking refers to. So we're really just taking the drilling piece of that, which is simpler and doesn't have as nearly as big an impact on the surrounding rock.

[Cody Sims]

One other just quick question on waste before we shift gears into your new endeavor. Doesn't France do a fairly good job of recycling their nuclear waste heavily?

[Liz Muller]

So France does. So there are a number of countries around the world that have taken the decision to reprocess or recycle their waste. They still have additional waste at the end. You know, you reprocess it or recycle it, but then you still have to have a disposal program. And so France is working on a disposal program using the mind repository approach.

[Cody Sims]

Okay, so you had been working on this for quite some time, and at some point you had some kind of aha. That led to what you're building now with deep vision. Describe that and then go into what deep vision is.

[Liz Muller]

So one of our customers wanted us to look at a bunch of different possible scenarios of what could go wrong with deep isolation. So you're putting nuclear waste into a borehole for disposal, mile underground. But what if? And of course, long list of what if? And one of those was what if accidentally, instead of putting spent nuclear fuel a mile underground, you put fresh fuel a mile underground. What would happen? Is there any criticality risk? Meaning could you start a sustained chain reaction? And we did the calculation and the answer was no, it would not be able to start as chain reaction. But it was a really interesting question for a couple of reasons. So first of all, if you've ever visited an existing nuclear power plant, you know how big they are, you can see them from a long ways away. And it's a lot of concrete, a lot of construction, a lot of steel reinforced concrete. And that is actually, According to the US Department of Energy, about 80% of the cost of nuclear power is in this physical construction. But what is the construction to do? Well, it's really two things. It's to create 160 atmospheres of pressure so that the water doesn't boil at a low temperature. You want high temperature steam, and then it's also for containment in case everything goes wrong. And Those are really 80% of the cost of nuclear power right there. So here we were in a borehole a mile underground, and we know we have amazing containment. That's why you want nuclear waste to go into a borehole a mile underground. But also, counterintuitively, you have 160 atmospheres of pressure, and that's from the column of water that's above you in the borehole. So we actually have the exact conditions that you would want if you wanted to create a nuclear reaction underground. Now, again, one fuel assembly would not go critical. But then the question was, well, can we come up with a design that would have a sustained nuclear chain reaction and could generate steam that would go to the surface and do this without all of the construction costs? That has been historically the reason that nuclear power is so expensive.

[Cody Sims]

You mentioned the. Would you say £160,000 of pressure? You know, that's from the water column that's above you? Maybe for people who don't come at this problem from an oil and gas perspective, maybe don't appreciate this. I don't know that I necessarily did before I started understanding more about what you're doing. When you're drilling these boreholes, it's not just like a giant hole in the ground, it's actually filled with water, right?

[Liz Muller]

That's right, yeah.

[Cody Sims]

Yeah. You've pumped water all the way down, and water is what you're usually using alongside a drill bit to actually drill the hole, extract dirt out of it as you drill, et cetera. Yes, yeah.

[Liz Muller]

When you drill a water well, you know, you drill to a certain depth and it'll fill with water. That is the natural state of boreholes. Now, in our circumstance, we're going to want to control that water, so we're going to have it fully cased, so there's not going to be any interaction between the rock and the borehole itself. But even so, we do expect it's going to be full of water, and that's what we use to create the pressure.

[Cody Sims]

So, fully case, meaning you have inserted some kind of tubing down the entire shaft of the borehole that you've created.

[Liz Muller]

That's right.

[Cody Sims]

Okay. And so that led to this. Aha. That. You know what if you used the pressure to be a containment system around a reactor, I think of a reactor as being a fairly large thing, But I think you're talking about a 30 inch borehole. So are you rethinking the sort of design and layout of what this reactor would look like underground as well?

[Liz Muller]

So we're looking at four standard fuel assemblies, like you said, a 30 inch borehole. But then you can have an array of these. So you can have multiple holes at a single site. So each hole will generate about 15 megawatts of electricity. And so if you are micro community, just need one reactor, maybe that's great, maybe that's all you need. But what we're seeing is that right now, the sweet spot and people who really need electricity right now are data centers. And data centers are probably going to want hundreds of megawatts or even gigawatts of electricity. And so what makes the most sense there is to look at, well, maybe we do somewhere between 10 and 100 of these reactors in an array and so generating between 150megawatts and 1.5 gigawatts of electricity.

[Cody Sims]

So this would be essentially underground rows of your reactors. And back to my question about size. I assume when I think of a nuclear reactor, I mean 15 megawatt reactor is substantially smaller than like an AP1000, which is 1 gigawatt. Right. But I think of size. A lot of the size I guess I'm thinking of is the actual containment. Right. It's the cement, it's the cooling tower, it's all of the stuff you have to build around the reactor core itself. Are these reactor cores actually? I mean, obviously I've never seen one with my own eyes. Are they relatively small in general?

[Liz Muller]

So the fuel is remarkably dense. So what you may have heard is that if you use nothing but nuclear power to power everything that you did over your entire lifetime, the fuel that you would use, which is also the same as the waste that you would generate, would fit inside one soda can.

[Cody Sims]

Wow.

[Liz Muller]

So it's really, really dense.

[Cody Sims]

Wow, that is such an incredible visual. Again, when I think of what I think of as a nuclear reactor and this, you know, incredibly large civic engineering project. But to your point, that is where the bulk of the cost of the reactor comes from.

[Liz Muller]

That's right.

[Cody Sims]

So talk to me then about burying these underground. You said a 30 inch borehole. How much does it cost to drill one of these boreholes?

[Liz Muller]

Not that much. We do have lots of drilling companies. It is highly competitive and in the oil and gas industry, the cost matters a lot. So you're trying to get margin on these holes where you're extracting natural gas. And so the cost has come down pretty dramatically. Now the size of the hole that we are drilling is much bigger, so our holes are going to be more expensive. A 30 inch borehole is not standard for oil and gas. Typically you're looking at between 4 and 6 inches for an oil and gas hole. So 30 inches can be done with standard equipment. We have spoken to multiple drilling companies who are comfortable with this. And if you're just doing one, you're probably looking at the $6 to $8 million range for a single one of these holes. That includes mobilization of the rig, which is probably biggest, most expensive part. And so if you're drilling more than 1, the cost will actually come down quite a bit.

[Cody Sims]

What type of fuel are you planning to use? I think we've all heard about some of the challenges with fuel supply chains and Russia and Hailu and all of that. You know, how does that factor into both current sort of geopolitical situations as well as what's actually been approved for use by the nrc, for example?

[Liz Muller]

So Deep Vision has taken the approach that we want to get to market as quickly as we possibly can, which means we want to use as small standard a design to what is already operational today as possible. So we could also eventually use other types of fuel. But for now we're looking at your typical pressurized water reactor fuel, so 5% enriched uranium, because we already have a mature supply chain for that that exists today. So really not trying to do anything new at this stage.

[Cody Sims]

So I'm hearing you say taking the advantages of sort of a small modular reactor type of unit, reducing the cost by getting rid of a lot of the containment cost, but then also not taking on a lot of the technology risk that maybe a lot of advanced reactors are taking on in that they're trying to use new fuels that haven't necessarily been deployed in USA before and instead taking the fuel source that the NRC and others are using, used to working with and understanding how to regulate. That's right, with an smr, with a small modular reactor, my understanding was the whole, by definition the name small modular reactor is that they are supposed to be easier to construct, cheaper to build, require less material, Are they still requiring significant amounts of concrete and construction cost?

[Liz Muller]

It depends on the type of small modular reactor that you're looking at. So if you're looking at above ground pressurized water reactors, small Modular reactors, there's still a fair amount of construction. So they still require cement and steel in order to create the pressure and clean everything. They're just trying to do it on a smaller scale. And what they're finding is that you need to have multiple modules in order for this to be cost effective. So it's a new approach. I think it's exciting, I think it's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't really remove the cost that I think we're going to need if we're going to have significantly more widespread adoption of nuclear power. Now, the advanced reactor companies, the ones that are using different materials, so different moderators, you're talking about molten salt reactors or high temperature gas reactors or any of these other designs that are out there, they've taken a different approach. So what they're trying to do is use materials that don't require high pressure. They will have less construction. But the trade off, as you mentioned, is that they're using things, materials that may not be licensed yet. Many of them require highly enriched uranium, which has supply chain challenges. And they're still doing something that has never really been proven, certainly not on a commercial scale before.

[Cody Sims]

And so the 5% rich uranium that you're using that is used in standard light water reactors across the USA has a fairly mature US Supply chain for it. Yes.

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think additionally it means that the models that are out there are really good. We understand these reactors extremely well because there are hundreds of of them around the world.

[Cody Sims]

It strikes me that with every nuclear reactor, really, you're creating a fancy way to boil water, generate steam, your solution notwithstanding. And what you're doing is underground drilling, horizontal drilling, and finding a way to pull steam out the other side of a borehole. Right. Similar to the value proposition of enhanced geothermal. What would be the benefits of going with your approach versus going all in on enhanced geothermal and sort of using underground as a power source that way?

[Liz Muller]

So deep fission is actually looking just at vertical holes. So we're not expecting to go horizontally with deep fission. Deep isolation does go horizontally.

[Cody Sims]

Got it.

[Liz Muller]

But sometimes I refer to deep fission as enhanced geothermal. So the challenge with geothermal is you go down deep in the rock and you have to go pretty deep to get to very hot rock. But then the rate at which you can extract that heat, heat is somewhat limited. And the rate of replenishment of that heat is even more limited. You're actually waiting for that heat to come in from other parts of rock and that just takes a while. And so the amount of energy that you can get out per borehole is not nearly as high. Now what we're doing, let's call it for a minute, assisted geothermal. So we're putting a small nuclear reactor at the bottom of the borehole that will create a much greater source of new heat that will keep the reaction going. And we're able to borrow a lot of the technology from geothermal. So in terms of how do we bring the steam to the surface, Great. That we know how to do, and in many ways it's been done before. So we're able to borrow different types of technologies, but combining them in a way that's novel.

[Cody Sims]

The other thing that strikes me, you know, benefits that you get one is resilience from surface issues. We're seeing so much focus on needing to create resilience around our critical infrastructure because of climate change induced wildfires, extreme weather and whatnot. And I assume being deep underground, you're largely isolated from that, at least from a nuclear safety perspective. As you said, your turbine still sits on surface. So from a power generation perspective, you're maybe still at risk there. But from a nuclear safety perspective, presumably, I would guess you would be more secure than an on ground facility would be. Just from surface level disaster scenarios.

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, I think it's a huge advantage. And one of the scenarios that you have to consider in the nuclear industry is what happens if an airplane crashes into your facility when you're a mile underground. Yes, that may take your turbine offline, but it's not going to have any sort of impact on the actual nuclear technology, which is a mile underground under billions of tons of rock.

[Yin]

Hey everyone, I'm Yin, a partner at mcj, here to take a quick minute to tell you about the MCJ Collective membership. Globally, startups are rewriting industries to be cleaner, more profitable and more secure. And at mcj, we recognize that a rapidly changing business landscape requires a workforce that can adapt. MCJ Collective is a vetted member network for tech and industry leaders who are building, working for or advising on solutions that can address the transition or of energy and industry. MCJ Collective connects members with one another with MCJ's portfolio and our broader network. We do this through a powerful member hub, timely introductions, curated events and a unique talent, matchmaking system. And opportunities to learn from peers and podcast guests. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. If you want to learn, learn more, Head over to MCJ VC and click the membership tab at the top. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the show.

[Cody Sims]

The other one that jumps to my mind would just be land use and I don't know how much with an smr, a small modular reactor. I don't know how much. You know, if you're building a data center campus, what percentage of the land use would need to be for the reactor itself relative in the reactor facility itself relative to the data center itself? I don't know if you have any math there. You can compare just in terms of what the physical footprint might look like doing that methodology as opposed to a deep fission type of setup.

[Liz Muller]

We've done some preliminary analysis of how closely we expect to be able to place our reactors. And we're looking at one acre for half dozen reactors or a dozen reactors. And if you want to have 100 reactors, then we're looking at about 3 acres. So it's really a remarkably small footprint on the surface. Certainly compared to other types of electricity.

[Cody Sims]

Generation, that surface land is primarily the turbine sort of facility.

[Liz Muller]

And then that's exactly it.

[Cody Sims]

Do you have to have some kind of safety and security around what you've done as well? Like is there a physical presence for security that has to be around the borehole?

[Liz Muller]

So there will be some sort of control center that could be physically present? It doesn't necessarily need to be physically present. It could also be remote. But it's hard to come up with a scenario in which even if the worst case scenario were to happen, that it would have an impact on humans or the environment. Again, because you're so deep underground, I expect we'll still want to have some sort of physical presence, but that's something we'll have to work through in detail with the regulator.

[Cody Sims]

Be super curious to hear ultimately what the security requirement ends up being. I mean, one thing with nuclear is you're kind of, you're always in a world of guards and guns for the most part. And so knowing if you can avoid having to have that type of on site security presence will be fascinating to hear as you all continue to learn what the requirements are to actually get these deployed. What is the maintenance requirement here? If you're a mile underground, how often are you having to replace the reactor core? How are you dealing with problems should they arise, even if it's not specifically fuel related, if it's a part that is having a problem, for example, how do you deal with this?

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, it's a great question. So we are looking at a relatively short fuel cycle. So under our current design, each reactor will only last about two Years. So two years is not a time frame in which you typically expect maintenance to be required. And so we are looking at a two year fuel cycle at the end of life. What we would like to do is lower the reactor deeper into the borehole. So you could of course pull it up and put it into storage for eventual disposal. But we think it makes the most sense to keep it within the borehole itself, just lower down. And then you put another reactor on top of it and you can store multiple reactors that way. If you're replacing it about every two years, then that might be 30 of them over a 60 year lifetime of the borehole. And then you just store them there. And then eventually, if we are allowed to do disposal at that location, we could dispose of it right there within the borehole without ever having to pull it up. Now we could also pull it up. That is something that we know how to do. The oil and gas industry has tools and expertise and how to pull things out of boreholes. So we could pull it back up and put it into storage for eventual disposal at a different location. But the concept is not much maintenance because you just replace it every two years.

[Cody Sims]

I know with deep isolation you're taking the spent fuel and putting it in casks. Are you saying here you would even obviate the cask storage step? Potentially, yeah.

[Liz Muller]

So deep isolation has. We call them canisters. So they're relatively small. The purpose of the canister is just to hold the fuel. Really. We haven't taken any safety credit for the canister. All of our calculations show that you don't need the canister.

[Cody Sims]

The borehole is the safety device.

[Liz Muller]

The borehole and the rock really is the safety. In the deep fission analogy, we're looking at using the reactor container. So it is in a thin walled container and that would be what you use to hold the spent fuel until such time as either you want to bring it up or you say it's now in disposal.

[Cody Sims]

How do you technically push it deeper? Just if you're sitting at the bottom of a borehole, what's the mechanism to drill deeper once the reactor core is already in the ground?

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, another great question. So you actually drill the hole deeper to begin with. So you drill the hole, let's call it 1.2 miles instead of 1 mile, and then the space is there. So you're holding up the reactor at 1 mile depth, but when you're done with it, you then just lower it into the space that's already been created.

[Cody Sims]

And so you're just Sort of planning for, call it 20 or 30 year old life of the borehole to begin with. And you drill enough disposal space underneath it. And what is the process for NRC like? Where are you? I know you filed something. I was googling deep vision before the conversation and came across your NRC filing. So you're in mid process on, I assume, your initial design.

[Liz Muller]

So we're in pre application engagement with the nrc. We submitted our regulatory engagement plan over a year ago. So we've been in process with them for a while now. Submitted our conceptual design overview white paper last summer and we're now working on the preliminary design in parallel with confirming our first location. So we do need that first location in order to submit our license. We're getting pretty close to having that identified. So the plan is to submit our full license application in the fall of next year.

[Cody Sims]

And you have an initial potential customer I've seen as well maybe share a little bit about the commercial progress.

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, so we're working with Endeavor Endeavour data centers. They're a fantastic group. So they've got data centers all over the world that they develop. They also do a lot of their own engineering. So they have expertise on turbines, on cooling systems. And so we're able to work with them for their customers on the first initial location. So they have confirmed 2 gigawatts as sort of our first order with them. But I think even more excitingly is this opportunity to do our first site together.

[Cody Sims]

I mean 2 gigawatts is a sizable order that would be sort of at scale. You would start with, you said your reactors are roughly 15 megawatts each. So that would be starting with essentially an array of them, I would assume trying to hit maybe 100 megawatts or something like that and then growing the footprint from there. Is that the idea?

[Liz Muller]

Yeah, that's what we're thinking about. So in terms of the particular size for the first one and the first license application, we're still thinking about that, working on that. But one of the things that we like is having a module of five together. So five is about 75 megawatts. It's a good standard size. It works well. Also with the design that we've been thinking about so far as maybe five reactors for three turbines. So again, still all this is to be confirmed. But it's a nice module which we might look at licensing first.

[Cody Sims]

We started the conversation by talking about the cost savings on essentially construction. Can you articulate that a little bit more like what you expect sort of the cost savings to be on a similarly sized, call it 15 megawatt reactor, or if you wanted to scale up and say a pod of reactors equivalent to 75 megawatts. How you're comparing your cost sort of all into building something on the surface.

[Liz Muller]

I mentioned earlier, sort of the 80% of the cost is in the construction that has borne out. And so if you look at the cost savings, we are looking at being about 20% of the cost of existing large scale nuclear. Now, in terms of more detail, all of this of course is subject to confirmation. And one of the things that we're thinking about particularly is to the extent that we're going to even need nuclear quality assurance and manufacturing, because typically if something goes wrong, it could have an impact on humans and the environment. In our scenario, that may not be true. And so we may not require the same degree of nuclear quality assurance, which could have a big impact on the cost of our reactors. So we are expecting to be about 20% of the cost. We've, we're talking publicly about 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt hour for the first of a kind. So there are mechanisms that eventually we think we can get significantly lower than that, particularly by using larger boreholes. But 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt hour and a cost of approximately $25 million per reactor of 15 megawatts. So that's a remarkably good price.

[Cody Sims]

Yeah. And the pressure in terms of its impact on steam generation and the power side of what you're doing is sort of obvious. On the containment side, there still presumably would be have a significant amount to prove there that the underground pressure provides the same containment that a steel and cement facility would. Is that an accurate question?

[Liz Muller]

So it's really the rock that provides the containment more than the borehole itself. So the rock is something that we actually do understand fairly well because we've looked at it for the containment of nuclear waste. And so in scenarios from Yucca Mountain. And then also of course, piggybacking on all the work that deep isolation has done, we understand the containment very well.

[Cody Sims]

Wouldn't those be sealed holes? Whereas with your borehole you've got the water sitting above it.

[Liz Muller]

Exactly. So that's the difference. We have a 30 inch borehole that we now need to think about. The borehole itself is where we need to focus our efforts. We do also have a lot of work that we can piggyback on because the oil and gas industry also worries about contamination. So you don't want the oil and gas and all the nasty stuff that you're bringing up from underground to impact the water table. So we do have systems that exist today to protect the water system from that. One of the advantages of deep vision is that we're not constantly bringing nasty stuff up. So if you're looking at an oil and gas well, you're constantly bringing stuff up that could potentially leak and have an impact deep vision. It's only really in an accident scenario where there's any chance of anything getting up above ground and that can be mitigated.

[Cody Sims]

So if I'm understanding you're well below the water table at a mile deep. It's just that because there is nothing technically between your reactor and this column of water up to the surface, that column of water at some point is essentially crossing the water table barrier. And so you would have to make sure there's not leakage that could happen. Should there be an issue with the reactor core at the bottom?

[Liz Muller]

Yes, that's correct.

[Cody Sims]

And talk about how you've kind of capitalized the company to date where you are. You announced your seed round middle end of last year, 2024, I guess.

[Liz Muller]

So we called it a pre seed round. And so that was the 4 million pre seed round led by 8 BC that we announced last summer. We're now working on our seed round that is really to finish the preliminary design that we've already been working on. We're hiring a lot of engineers right now and then also to confirm this first site and to start beginning to do the site specific work that we're going to need to do for our license application.

[Cody Sims]

Well, congrats on that.

[Liz Muller]

Thank you.

[Cody Sims]

You've been in nuclear now a long time. I don't know that you set out to necessarily work in the nuclear space based on your background and the work you did with Berkeley Earth. But you know, here you are. Where do you think this industry's going?

[Liz Muller]

I think there's tremendous excitement in the nuclear industry right now. I think it's been a really long time coming. So it started with climate change and I think that my interest in nuclear grew out of climate change. And it's not enough to do lots of little things. We need really big things that are going to move needle when it comes to climate change. And I think nuclear is one of the big things that we can do that will actually have a significant impact. That was then accelerated by the war in Ukraine. Sort of everyone realizing that we need energy security, energy independence. We can't rely on natural gas the way we once thought we could. Particularly if you're in Europe and that led to a tremendous acceleration of interest in nuclear power. Now, of course, the third thing that is adding to this right now is data centers and AI and expectations around power demand growth and not being able to get natural gas turbines as fast as we want them. So there's suddenly this additional layer on top of those two that were already there that is really just making even more excitement about nuclear power. Now, nuclear power cannot move as quickly as some other technologies. So I think we're really not looking at a dramatic expansion of nuclear power until we can get some of these new technologies up and running. 2029 is our timeframe for commercialization. But by the 2000-30s, I think we can start to see much more significant implementations on a much larger scale.

[Cody Sims]

You know, a few critiques of the nuclear industry in the U.S. i mean, one obviously is just that we slowed things to a crawl until recently and now there's the boom of innovation happening. None of it live yet, but a lot in the works. And in the US there's what, 50 odd reactors across 90 something sites, I believe today. And one of the challenges is almost every one of those reactors was a first of a kind. You had to continually go through an approval and learning cycle. The US has been unable to get cost downs by making things replicable. And now we have this explosion of innovation and yet all of them are again, first of a kind solutions. How do you see that playing out? I feel like one of the advantages I'm hearing from you of deep vision is that you're not necessarily requiring a ton of risk on the fuel source and sort of understanding and approval of that. So it's definitely a new mousetrap that you're building here. Explain how you see that playing out. Is there going to be large shakeout in the industry or are we going to have a thousand flowers that bloom and multiple different kinds of technologies based on use cases?

[Liz Muller]

Wow. Lots of content in that question. Let me try and break it apart. But you might have to circle back and remind me of the pizza that I forgot. First thing is, small modular reactors have a massive advantage because if you want to bring in, let's call it gigawatt, then instead of just building one or let's call it up 1.5 gigawatts to make it round numbers for my scenario is then you're bringing in 100 reactors. And so of those hundred reactors, you might call it a first of a kind implementation. Maybe it is our first of a kind implementation, but you're doing a hundred of them and so it is both the first of a kind and the hundredth of a kind. And you're learning as you go. And I think that's huge. That's like what we do right now for solar. And so you bring in a solar facility and it may be a first of a kind, but it's also a hundredth of a kind because it's modular and you can grow as you need to. So I think that's going to really change the way that we think about first of a kind. The other thing that I'll add to that, which is one of the things that I'm really excited about for Deep Vision, is that we are going to be profitable on the first of a kind implementation. So I think the industry has struggled in the past with this concept of, well, we may lose money on the first and we may lose money on the 2nd, but eventually we'll get to the nth. And once we get to the nth, we can be profitable and we're going to have a good margin. I think the question that people have been asking, well, how much money are you going to have to lose and who's going to foot that bill to get you to the nth of a kind? And what we're seeing now, particularly with Deep vision, but I think there are other designs out there that can do this too, is if you can be profitable on your first of a kind implementation. Well, there's still going to be a certain amount of risk aversion and not everybody's going to be willing to take that risk. But if you can get a great return on that, then you will find more people who are willing to move forward with a first of a kind technology.

[Cody Sims]

And how many new technologies do you think ultimately will end up live and out there? Like, is there going to be a narrowing down in the industry of the dozens of solutions that are currently in R and D?

[Liz Muller]

I think so. I mean, I think what we're going to see is who can actually be profitable in various different market segments. So there's definitely a few different market segments. There's going to be portable nuclear, for example, replacing diesel generators.

[Cody Sims]

We had Doug from Radiant on the show recently. There's an example of that.

[Liz Muller]

That's an example of a segment that Deep Vision is never going to play in. We are never going to be portable. Right. You can't move a borehole. I think there is going to be a need for that. I think there's also going to be a need for very low cost, stable, reliable power, which is the niche that Deep Vision is looking to fill. There may be others as well, but I think we are going to see a consolidation. I think not all technologies are going to make it through. I think it's going to come largely down to who can be profitable, which is why there's so much focus on cost.

[Cody Sims]

Well, Liz, this has been a super enlightening conversation for me. It's been awesome to see the evolution of your work in this space. You know, I'm really excited for the future that you're building with Deep Vision. Is there anything else we should have covered?

[Liz Muller]

I think we've covered everything that was on my list, so appreciate it.

[Cody Sims]

Cody, anything you need help from, from anybody listening who is interested, excited, wants to learn more from you. Who do you want to hear from?

[Liz Muller]

We're already seeing a swell of interest in nuclear power. I think if any of the listeners out there are interested, maybe they're working for a customer who might be interested in nuclear technology, they should absolutely feel free to reach out to us at Deep Vision. I'd also say that if you are just interested in nuclear, as an observer, have those conversations. So people are still not talking about nuclear power as much as I think we all should be. And you know that we're seeing a generational shift with younger people more and more open to nuclear power, which has been fantastic. But we still need to get the concept out there more.

[Cody Sims]

Liz, thanks for joining us again on the show and thanks for the update on everything you're building.

[Liz Muller]

Thank you so much, Cody. Really happy to be here.

[Cody Sims]

Inevitable is an MCJ podcast. At mcj, we back founders driving the transition of energy and industry and solving the inevitable impacts of climate change change. If you'd like to learn more about mcj, visit us at MCJ VC and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Newsletter MCJ vc. Thanks and see you next episode.