Deep Fission to break ground this week

The details: Deep Fission’s announcement of the groundbreaking came just one day after the company said it had signed an agreement with the Department of Energy, a move that Deep Fission CEO Liz Muller called a major milestone in facilitating the project.

In its announcement, Deep Fission specified that it has selected the Great Plains Industrial Park in Parsons, Kan., as the site of its pilot reactor project.

The company also said it has signed a letter of intent with the Great Plains Development Authority (the government administration company that owns the industrial park) outlining the nature of their collaboration on the project. That LOI also states the parties’ “intention to develop a full-scale commercial project at the same site.”

Some background: This news builds on a September announcement from Deep Fission that it had signed LOIs for three planned sites in Kansas, Texas, and Utah. While the company has not detailed the scale of each project, this newest update states that its LOIs represent approximately 12.5 GW of potential future demand.

This latest news also builds on the company’s financial progress—raising $30 million in September and going public via a reverse merger transaction.

Deep Fission plans to deploy 15-MWe pressurized water reactors one mile underground via 30-inch boreholes. That reactor was previously referred to as the Deep Fission Borehole Reactor-1, or DFBR-1, but was recently renamed by the company to the Gravity Nuclear Reactor, or simply Gravity.