I've made a few comments in
Bold. No words in the original article have been removed, although the images are not included (other than an icon-sized version of the frontispiece) (I may add my own images later.)
Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
An Underground Nuclear Reactor Is Coming
("Is Coming" As if it's a foregone conclusion) to This Kansas Town—and Dividing Locals
No one has tried operating a commercial reactor a mile down—until now.
(As if it's already happened.) "It's great that it's here. It's kind of bad that we're the guinea pigs."
By Kris Maher and Jennifer Hiller, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2026
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/climate-environment/an-underground-nuclear-reactor-is-coming-to-this-kansas-townand-dividing-locals-7cd558a3
PARSONS, Kan.—Residents of this sleepy farming outpost agree on many things. But whether to put an experimental nuclear reactor a mile deep in the granite beneath their town isn’t one of them.
Elected officials and some others see a chance to create jobs and lure data centers and manufacturers to a rural patch whose economy has been flatter than the surrounding cornfields. Another group is effectively saying “not under my backyard.”
(No! They're saying: "WTF?")
“I put $125,000 into my house, and now a nuclear reactor is coming to town,” said Jerel Johnson, an IT professional who planned to retire in Parsons. “I can’t think of a worse idea.”
No one has tried operating a commercial nuclear reactor deep underground—until now. The so-called Gravity Reactor is the creation of Liz Muller and her father, Richard Muller, emeritus professor of physics at University of California, Berkeley and an inventor.
(Invented what, a hole in the ground?) They founded Deep Fission, a three-year-old California startup that has raised around $150 million in the past year, including $40 million last month through an initial public offering, largely to fund the work in Parsons.
Parsons, with a population of 9,600, sits about midway between Kansas City and Tulsa, Okla. Deep Fission drilled a first test hole
(HOW DEEP DID THEY GO?) this spring on 100 acres at a mostly overgrown industrial park dotted with old munitions bunkers just outside town.
On a recent day, Maurice LaFountain, Deep Fission’s senior engineering director, showed off pink-flecked granite retrieved from the company’s first test hole and joked that the billion-year-old rock would make a nice countertop.
An empty steel canister sat on a cleared drill pad, waiting to go down a second hole this year
(How far down?). The plan is to send another one loaded with nuclear fuel
(As if going from a steel canister, to an operational nuclear is a small step. Will the steel canister have the tubing that will be used for the reactor going down a full mile? Will they try retrieving it? Does it weigh half what a reactor will weigh?) into a third hole to heat water a mile underground and generate electricity on the surface in 2027 or 2028—an astonishingly short time frame by industry standards.
(Why three different holes? (Just curious. Thirty holes wouldn't be enough proof the idea is even half sane to me!) How wide and how deep will each be? And why isn't that information included in this stupid article?)
Verlyn Bolinger, an insurance agent who sits on the Parsons city commission, as his great-great-grandfather did, is now mostly excited by that prospect.
(An insurance salesman, huh? Has he heard of Price-Anderson?)
“Any time you’re putting a nuclear reactor in a hole, it’s kind of scary,” he said in his office, surrounded by Kansas City Royals memorabilia. “It’s great that it’s here. It’s kind of bad that we’re the guinea pigs.”
(See how that worked out for the citizens of the Bikini Atoll... https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2026/07/book-review-bomb-by-theodore-taylor.html )
A push for a ‘nuclear renaissance’
The project is riding momentum from the Trump administration’s efforts to usher in a “nuclear renaissance” by streamlining regulations and offering the industry billions of dollars in loans and fuel supply-chain investments. Executive orders President Trump signed last year aim to quadruple America’s nuclear-power generation by 2050—a steep climb given that construction in the industry has slowed to a crawl for the last three decades; nuclear generates about a fifth of U.S. electricity.
(LESS THAN a fifth -- and shrinking as renewables + storage is faster, cheaper, easier, safer, MORE RELIABLE and vastly more environmentally friendly.)
The renewed interest comes amid soaring electricity demand, much of it driven by data centers for artificial intelligence.
Deep Fission’s project is one of 11 in an Energy Department pilot program designed to build and test small, advanced reactors to pave the way for commercial use. Participating companies can construct reactors outside a traditional national laboratory setting and use expedited procedures for environmental reviews.
(New designs by companies that have never built a reactor and an expedited environmental review -- what could possibly go right?)
Deep Fission is part of a project designed to build and test small, advanced reactors to pave the way for commercial use.
“It’s allowing us to develop a first reactor within a time frame that had been unthinkable previously,” said Liz Muller, Deep Fission’s chief executive.
Four startups, including one from a separate DOE program, say they have achieved criticality, or self-sustaining nuclear reactions, with their reactor designs. Deep Fission’s is using a common, scaled-down, reactor design; its innovation is putting it underground.
(That is hardly the only difference. Size matters, and margins of error matters too.)
The key to the plan is avoiding the need for hulking containment buildings. Instead, the mile-deep hole will provide the necessary pressure, cooling and containment.
(Presuming rocks with no fissures and they won't crack from the heat or be damaged during drilling.) A single reactor will generate just 15 megawatts, enough to power about 12,000 homes, but Muller envisions an array of 100 or more
(Think of the maintenance problems!), providing more than a gigawatt, enough for a data center
(Let the cat out of the bag). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would oversee approval of commercial licensing, needed to sell electricity.
(Is that the ONLY reason the NRC is "needed"???)
Dozens of firms are designing smaller reactors and a handful have begun construction, but none yet operate commercially in the U.S. Companies like Deep Fission must prove they can meet short timelines, contain costs and overcome the industry’s historic challenges.
(How can they prove any of this before actually operating the reactor and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!)
Nuclear watchdogs say the administration is moving too fast and cutting corners. This spring, 12 attorneys general argued that circumventing standard environmental reviews would put communities at risk, among other things.
(A nuclear accident could affect multiple states and ultimately, the entire world.)
Deep Fission drilled a first test hole for its nuclear reactor this spring on 100 acres at an industrial park outside Parsons.
“It’s simply unacceptable to even consider exempting Deep Fission from a peer-reviewed environmental impact statement on the generation of high-level nuclear waste under Parsons,” said Paul Gunter with Beyond Nuclear, a group that opposes nuclear power and weapons.
(If the WSJ thinks nuclear weapons are relevant to this discussion, they should include the word "proliferation".)
The Energy Department said the administration remains focused on safety and security.
(Ignoring cost and all the clean alternatives that don't require safety and security considerations at all.)
Liz Muller said Deep Fission’s plan to store spent fuel underground is safe.
(Did she provide any documentation proving this absurd statement?) Eventually it could seal it in place or move it to another site
(Uh huh. Sure. Just pick it up and move it. Careful: It's HOT!). She and her father previously founded Deep Isolation, which designs underground disposal of nuclear waste.
(And these are used where? Nowhere.)
Deep Fission plans to open a Parsons office where locals can ask questions, she said. The project “needs to be done in partnership with the community and sort of their own vision for their economic development.”
(One guard on site (MAYBE) and the rest is automated (the always-reliable AI?). Not many jobs after construction.)
Parsons: looking for a spark
When Deep Fission broke ground
(HOW DEEP did they dig so far? When constructed, what portion will be lined, and with what (if any will be)?) in December, some residents were shaken. The Great Plains Industrial Park, a decommissioned U.S. Army ammunition base, had approved the project without public discussion.
Marjorie Reynolds, a pediatric nurse, quickly formed a nonprofit, the Prairie Dog Alliance, to oppose the project. Its logo is a prairie dog in a black-and-yellow nuclear symbol.
Reynolds worries about environmental oversight and potential risks to water. She questions how the company will perform maintenance underground, and why drillers are operating under oil-and-gas regulations, not nuclear ones. If Deep Fission were to go out of business, what then?
Marjorie Reynolds formed a nonprofit to oppose the nuclear project. She worries about environmental oversight and potential risks to water.
“This is a nuclear experiment,” said the seventh-generation Kansan, who hands out donated patches that say “half lives matter” and “remember Chernobyl.”
Muller said Deep Fission’s reactor is too deep to affect aquifers
(What's the proof of this statement? And how do they drill a hole past where aquifers might be without risking contaminating that aquifer? (If that part is lined, with what and how thick will that lining be?)), and that it will follow all nuclear and oil-and-gas regulations. Its reactors are expected to last six to seven years, she added, so the likelihood of maintenance is low. “There’s not a lot of moving parts that require maintenance. We have simplified our reactor quite extensively.”
(A: SHOW US. B: What if maintenance IS required? What's that going to be like with 100 holes filled with reactors? How many operators? AI only? Testing/training AI properly beforehand will be impossible; being sure it is scalable will also be impossible; being sure it won't "escape" its rules and misbehave will also be impossible.)
Parsons was a 19th-century boomtown with one of the largest rail yards west of the Mississippi. A tornado tore through in 2000
(So the entire topside can be wiped away because there's no big strong building up top. What happens down below after that happens up top?). These days, officials point to small economic victories like attracting a Taco Bell and saving a furniture store. They have plans to build housing behind the bowling alley. All they need is people to move here.
Wayne Gilmore, an optometrist who owns the local radio station that broadcasts high-school football games, doesn’t want to miss a potential economic boon
(A "boom" is a better word.). “Rural communities cannot build their futures by rejecting new technology before it’s evaluated,” he said.
(A optimistic short-sighted optometrist.)
Robert Spinks, Parsons’s police chief, said he isn’t worried about potential contamination and thinks the reactor could be the spark the city needs when energy is a big draw.
Robert Spinks, Parsons’s police chief, thinks the reactor could boost the city as energy demand grows.
(It's planning to have one very risky customer: A data center.)
“It’s a proven technology, just in a new application,” he said. (He's being misled.) “And if that is a trigger which draws in other manufacturing and brings in living-wage jobs, I think that’s a win.”
(No discussion of the many very real issues that this nutty idea has to overcome...)
(Comments in bold added by Ace Hoffman July 29, 2026.)
July 27, 2026
To Whom It May Concern,
In my opinion there are numerous problems with the Deep Fission reactor concept. I've listed a few of the most obvious ones:
1) It will have two cables, each one mile long, for placing and possibly retrieving the unit. Since reactors are extremely dense and heavy items, the possibility of a cable break should not be ignored. If one cable breaks or merely stretches a smidgen more than the other cable, the reactor will likely turn sideways and jam in the hole. This could happen near the surface or deep inside the hole. Furthermore, one dropped bolt, wrench, brick, rock etc. could ruin everything.
2) Multiple holes, if they are close together, could mean a single reactor meltdown and steam explosion could affect nearby reactors. And the proper definition of "close" is very uncertain.
3) Mile-long drill holes can collapse at any point, making retrieval and operation impossible.
4) If the control rods cannot be inserted for any reason, a meltdown situation could happen essentially forever.
5) It does not appear that the holes will be lined in any way. Natural fissures could cause large rocks to come loose, or the drilling process itself could loosen chunks of the walls. Perfect smoothness would require numerous tool bit changes, increasing the cost significantly. Will they use dull drill bits to save money during construction (when no income is coming in and costs mean everything)?
6) Earthquakes can destroy every borehole at once, causing as many meltdowns as there are reactors. Even a fraction of an inch misalignment could mean the reactor(s) could NEVER be retrieved or serviced.
7) If water intrusion occurs from an unrealized already-existing deep fissure, everything goes boom and continues to spew radioactive steam essentially forever. Plugging up the hole would be extremely difficult, unlikely to be permanent, and only means the underground area would continue becoming the most polluted place on earth. Any warning signs above ground would not last nearly as long as the waste would be toxic, spreading, and unmanageable.
8) If either the downspout or the steam pipe breaks anywhere along the mile-deep tubing, it may be impossible to retrieve anything below the break point.
9) The only way for this to pay back the builders and operators is to run these reactors for a long, long time. Pulling any reactor up to inspect/repair it means pulling up the entire mile-long tubing, which means the entire tubing must be sectioned and separable. Each joint has to be 100% leak-proof. How many sections do they plan to have? (For example: If each segment is 50 feet tall (about five stories), they would need more than 100 segments for each fission reactor, with more than 100 leak-proof joints.)
10) Operating reactors need electrical control cables as well as steam and water piping. These cables, dropping a mile straight down, will have to remain in perfect condition and be retrievable along with the reactor. Running right next to the hot steam and water is a very unsafe place for electrical cables. (Imagine a surface reactor having to run its electrical system right next to its primary coolant pipes.)
There are undoubtedly many other problems with ANY deep-borehole reactor design, but these come to mind — without even requiring any deep-thought!
Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA
###
Note: The first borehole has been reliably reported as being 8 inches in diameter and 6,000 feet deep. (source NEIS NWTE, July 30, 2026)
(All quotes below are from
https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/a-nuclear-reactor-buried-one-mile-below-ground-moves-from-concept-to-a-kansas-test-site/ )
Test wells: "... intended to collect geological, hydrological and thermal information ..." The company admits they don't have enough data yet to know if this is the least bit feasible.
The project is already behind schedule: Plans called for criticality by July 4, 2026, instead they delivered a "prototype reactor canister" on July 7, 2026. Expect schedule slippage throughout the project.
"The company argues that relying on familiar components could reduce technical uncertainty compared with developing an entirely new reactor system." But in fact, they ARE developing an entirely new reactor system which cannot be properly tested on the surface (because it has no containment, and because pressures and thermal conditions are different, etc.). Additionally, the site-specific environment is completely without precedent. It's a crap-shoot.
*****
Interesting how these two quotes admit the company is concerned about hazards the industry and the NRC has always dismissed:
"... would operate far from storms, aircraft and most surface activity."
"...hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis and aircraft crashes. Surrounding rock would provide a physical barrier against surface hazards and deliberate attacks." How is a mile-deep hole protected from floods? And if the reactor is so safe, why are they seeking (and presumably won't move forward without) Price-Anderson insurance protection?
*****
The author of the article doesn't seem to have considered the dichotomy of the following two quotes:
"Regulators must also examine how the design would manage groundwater, drilling conditions, heat removal, radioactive material and emergencies deep underground."
"The reactor would remain attached to cables. Deep Fission says operators could raise it to the surface in one or two hours if inspection became necessary." That timing sounds extremely optimistic.
And even supposing they could raise the reactor to the surface (despite all the potential for something to get stuck) how would they propose to work on, or transport, an unshielded reactor? Or even inspect it?
*****
Lastly: How sure is anybody that there is no problematic residue in the area left over from the previous uses of this site? Given that this was a munitions manufacturing site, what happens if they already have reactors in the ground and they hit unexploded munitions while drilling another hole?
###
Contact information for the author of this newsletter:
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download:
acehoffman.org
Blog:
acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube:
youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at]
acehoffman.org
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The Animated Software Company
