Dallas startup enriches Uranium

https://www.actinideinc.com/press/actinide-becomes-first-startup-to-ever-enrich-natural-uranium-to-produce-haleu

72•dsalzman•1h ago

Comments

johnea•40m ago

If we didn't have a lunatic in the whitehouse, I'm sure we could negotiate with Iran.

With Texas, I'm not so sure...

Private enterprise enriching uranium is a seriously worrying development...

maxall4•39m ago

I’m no expert, but I don’t believe that “high-assay low-enriched uranium” is the sort you can use in nuclear weapons, per it being “low-enriched”. According to the DOE, HALEU only goes up to 20% enrichment [0]. Nuclear weapons, it seems, need it to be enriched beyond 20% [1]

[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-high-assay-low-enric... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium

NewJazz•37m ago

Dirty bombs

comicjk•22m ago

Uranium-235 isn't useful for dirty bombs: it's too long-lived and not radioactive enough. Making dangerous levels of radiation requires short-lived isotopes. Some of these are the products of uranium fission, which is why spent uranium fuel is a radiation hazard. But isolating U-235 just to fission it to get radioactive isotopes like cesium-137 would not be the easiest way to get them.

charliebwrites•32m ago

I’m just waiting for one of these private rocket companies to buy a private nuclear enriching company

We could reach Lex Luther level villainy in no time at all

chasd00•14m ago

Pantex is outside Amarillo, that's where all the US's nukes come from. If Texas wanted nukes ( well more nukes actually ) they'd juts place an order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex

porkpieshoe•6m ago

Pantex doesn't power a panopticon, nor does it threaten my livelihood.

Legend2440•12m ago

>Private enterprise enriching uranium is a seriously worrying development...

Or seriously exciting. We might actually get affordable, clean nuclear energy this century.

git_rancher•40m ago

A few hundred thousand dollars worth of tech replacing what used to be a massive industrial investment is amazing. And I thought enriching uranium is something that counties with nukes go to extreme lengths to make it not accessible.

john_strinlai•32m ago

>And I thought enriching uranium is something that counties with nukes go to extreme lengths to make it not accessible.

low-enrichment (~20%) is what's happening here.

the bad stuff, for nukes, is ~90% enrichment.

HPsquared•28m ago

It's the same process either way, and the first few percent are the hardest (as it's super dilute so you need to handle a lot of material). It's much easier to go from 20% to 90%, than it is to get to 20%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separative_work_units

Legend2440•14m ago

>And I thought enriching uranium is something that counties with nukes go to extreme lengths to make it not accessible.

It's not that difficult from an engineering perspective, the tech is almost a century old. It's just that we will drop bombs on anyone who tries.

Nuclear nonproliferation relies on active enforcement.

datakan•39m ago

So will we start bombing Dallas now?

lotsofpulp•33m ago

Might make it more walkable.

chasd00•16m ago

hah probably help cool things off too.

fodkodrasz•34m ago

So this is basically a calutron... a huge mass spectrometer. 1940s technology, upgraded with state-of-the-now control systems, and electromagnets. A formidable engineering work, but more of a breakthrough from legislation and compliance perspective possibly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron

bpodgursky•31m ago

That's fine

jabl•17m ago

IIRC Calutron's were basically abandoned because they were massively inefficient compared to gaseous diffusion and, particularly, centrifuges.

What has changed here to make them competitive again? Or are they counting on selling small quantities at close to any cost for R&D reactors?

Speaking of which, whatever happened to laser enrichment? That was apparently very promising at some point?

piyh•10m ago

>Under the Atomic Energy Act, all information not specifically declassified is classified as Restricted Data, whether it is privately or publicly held

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_isotopes_by_lase...

Legend2440•7m ago

They talk about that in the article:

>"A centrifuge plant does one thing, costs billions, and takes years to stand up. Our machines cost a few hundred thousand dollars, produce material within months, deploy anywhere, and are able to be reconfigured in a matter of days to separate various isotopes as they are needed," said Robert Mendelsohn, co-founder and CTO of Actinide.

josefritzishere•27m ago

I have a bad feeling.

futura_heavy•10m ago

Is it the menacing guys in the photo, or that headache-inducing logo?

peri-cl•26m ago

> "Actinide’s flagship commercial product: enriched ytterbium-176,"

To save HN a search: a stable isotope used as a neutron capture target, to produce lutetium-177[i], used in targeted radioligand therapies[ii]. Discussed once on HN[iii].

[i] https://isotopes.gov/Ytterbium-176_is_Available_Now

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutetium_(177Lu)_vipivotide_te...

[iii] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40690196 ("Radioactive drugs strike cancer with precision (knowablemagazine.org)")

shevy-java•13m ago

They are killing the environment now. I remember this discussion some 25 or 30 years ago in serbia, e. g. depleted uranium. Well, guess some company always wants to find ways for dumping or lifting-up radioactive substance.

benabbott•11m ago

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see careless AI-generated images added to a site's homepage.

If your images are AI, I'm assuming your text is too. But even if it's not... if you're not willing to put in the time & effort to make the images on your homepage look good, my expectations go way down.

ortusdux•5m ago

I've been following SuperCritical, a new startup working on Uranium extraction from sea water. My understanding is that the process is much more sustainable than mining, which makes it easier/faster to establish a domestic source vs the permits needed for a new US based mine.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/26/335139...

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