A)
In 50 words or more, describe your basic business idea:
Transmutation of nuclear waste by method of accelerator based neutron production. Neutrons then directed onto nuclear waste canisters transmute Cesium 137 (radioactive) into Cesium 133 (non-radioactive). Build this equipment, then deploy at nuclear reactors charging them a $5M up front fee + $100K monthly maintenance while equipment is deployed for the transmutation purpose. Upon sufficient transmutation then remove equipment to re-use at next customer reactor waste depository site. Once standard set of equipment to perform task is known, duplicate at high volume to lower costs by economies of scale and deploy at numerous nuclear waste depositories simultaneously. Transmutation is far superior to move & burial methods currently in use. (Yucca Mountain NV, Hanford WA, Savannah River GA,...) (The $5M & $100K amounts are place holders for now to be determined upon Business Plan completion. Given budget sizes discussed below these amounts may have to be actually much higher.)
Nuclear Waste has been accumulating throughout the 1950s/60s/70s finally causing enough alarm instigating political will to enact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (that link for revised edition includes updates to 2004). According to a 1 Feb 2019 article on this, each nuclear utility in fact did make payments of $750M per year for 30 some odd yrs (1983-2014) into what is now known as the Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) "earmarked for permanent disposal of spent fuel generated by commercial reactors". Utilities sued in 2014 to end their obligation of making these payments since the Govt defaulted on its obligation to decide upon the ultimate nuclear waste management solution.
According to the same 1 Feb 2019 article, all prior payments now comprise in fact $43B (2018) which earns $1.5B interest annually (NWF Audit Report 2018). It is this $43B NWF which the current effort seeks to tap as its source for purchasing the electrical energy/power to run equipment, design/construction/testing of the requisite transmutation equipment and for the Capex & Opex of the effort.
The Yucca Mountain NV facility has been under consideration for storage (move & burial there) for decades. To date, $11B budget has already been spent on Yucca Mountain. Unfortunately, plans to modify the canisters specifically for Yucca storage could hinder the transmutation effort. Therefore, these modifications must be opposed to keep the waste in its current canister conditions so nuclear waste has a better chance of being eliminated by transmutation so it poses almost zero risk to future generations.
B)
In 50 words or more, describe your target market:
First, Commercial nuclear reactor installations where waste is stored on site currently in pools. Begin with one reactor as pilot customer, then deploy at every other nuclear reactor site in US, then onto France, then globally. Another 30 Jan 2017 article reports that "Some 72,000 metric tons of nuclear waste - more than 154 million pounds - have piled up at 75 commercial reactor sites all over America over the past half century, and it can't stay there forever, said the Government Accountability Office in a recent report." Therefore, this identifies just exacty how many and who would be the target market of customers, these 75.
Second, Government installations suffering from nuclear contamination which currently have no solution for the long term disposition of radioactive materials subject to accidental releases such as happened at Hanford Washington in May 2017 when ground erosion revealed an underground cave containing radioactive materials which released into the atmosphere. As far as market size is concerned, it can be stated that the federal government budget currently allocates $160B annually for the management of the waste at just two sites, Hanford WA and Savannah River GA. This existing practice is movement and burial only but not elimination of the waste. Nuclear Isotope Transmutation by contrast offers the promise to transmute the Cesium 137 isotope in the materials to the Cesium 133 isotope which is not radioactive at all, thus rendering the materials disposable by conventional methods posing zero radioactive contamination risk to future generations.
C)
What income do you expect to earn from profits or salary?
No idea
D)
In 50 words or more, list three action steps to be taken before you open for business: (This field is required)
1) Complete conceptual Technical Design Report: a) to outline targeted nuclear isotope transmutation path between Cesium 137 to Cesium 133, b) to estimate prerequisite Capex and Opex, c) to create an initial Business Plan: i) to define products and services, ii) to establish prices for products and services ensuring business viability, iii) to identify not only the market but its size and expected fraction which may be targeted and iv) to identify competitors in this space and the differentiators between them and the new business effort. This same 30 Jan 2017 article actually identifies a few of the Orange County CA competitors in this space. There must presumably be numerous others.
2) Design/build/test miniaturized version of same or similar particle accelerator equipment shrunk to fit inside a shipping container for ease of transport from reactor to reactor and reusability of equipment at each reactor waste depository, the technology being based on decades of experience with this particle accelerator equipment in routine operation at large government & smaller university based (still government funded) accelerator laboratories;
3) Deploy on solid block of Cesium 137 to verify experimental transmutation success along nuclide isotope pathway to Cesium 133 is indeed realizable and both realized in and reduced to practice. Then deploy on actual canister from a waste depository pool at a willing reactor installation to determine and characterize the energy, intensity and spatial directional distribution of neutron beam necessary to and optimized for the target transmutation path (which may differ from those required on the block of pure Cesium 137).
E)
What capital do you need and where will it come from?
The $43B Nuclear Waste Fund is therefore sought by the new business entity conducting this effort to act as the source for purchasing the i) electrical energy/power to run equipment, ii) the engineering services for design/construction/testing of the requisite transmutation equipment and iii) the business professional services for assessing the requisite Capex & Opex for the new business entity.
An alternative strategy is to seek merely this $1.5B annual interest to fund the new business entity, which would then compete with a number of other firms proposing to construct "interim storage", again an unimaginative move & burial solution. The new business entity offers the superior service of "transmuting the waste into benign magterials" which ought therefore to win against these move & burial competitors. This same 30 Jan 2017 article actually identifies a few of the Orange County CA competitors in this space. There must presumably be numerous others.
$1M from Federal & State matching programs to hire relevant professional services personnel (nuclear, mechanical, electrical, civil engineering, legal, business) to make accurate the numerous initial approximations and assumptions in initial concept documents.
$250K SBIR Phase I.
F)
Briefly describe the specific assistance you are requesting or goals you want to achieve.
A longer list of check-off boxes but these I selected:
The general assistance requested from SBIR/SBDC/PTAC/Score staff is completion of a most-likely-to-succeed version of an SBIR or other Federal/State proposal to win initial funds to pay for the professional engineering & business services to determine accurately the many terms, conditions, parameters of the analysis needed for quantifying the statements of the problems and the nature of the solutions proposed by the new business entity.
Specifically these are Business Accounting-Budget, Business Plan, Government Contracting, Start-up Assistance.