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Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)
- johnea 1mo ago[flagged]
- maxall4 1mo agoI’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-enriched-uranium-haleu https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-high-assay-low-enric... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium
- NewJazz 1mo agoDirty bombs
- comicjk 1mo agoUranium-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.
- rotringlvr 1mo ago[dead]
- lightedman 1mo ago"Uranium-235 isn't useful for dirty bombs" It is when your goal is to throw a ton of alpha emitters into the environment for the population to ingest. Do you remember your nuclear cookie thought experiment?
- ben_w 1mo agoUranium-235 has a half-life of 704 million years. It emits so slowly that the main hazard is heavy metal poisoning, which you'd also get from the depleted uranium that's a waste product from enrichment. From the numbers I see on https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-uranium https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-u..., if a dirty bomb with 1kg of 100% pure Uranium-235 exploded and evenly deposited a fine dust over a 170 by 170 meter square of typical soil, the total Uranium-235 (and specifically that isotope) of the top meter would only double; the total mass of uranium in that volume would only go up by 0.7%. The average concentration of natural uranium in soil is about 2 parts per million, which is equivalent to 2 grams of uranium in 1000 kg of soil. This means that the top metre of soil in a typical 10 m ´ 40 m garden contains about 2 kg of uranium (corresponding to about 50,000,000 Bq of activity just from the decay of the uranium isotopes and ignoring the considerable activity associated with the decay of the progeny. Concentrations of uranium in granite range from 2 parts per million to 20 parts per million. Uranium in higher concentrations (50 - 1000 mg per kg of soil) can be found in soil associated with phosphate deposits. In air, uranium exists as dust. Very small, dust-like particles of uranium in the air are deposited onto surface water, plant surfaces, and soil. These particles of uranium eventually end up back in the soil or in the bottom of lakes, rivers, and ponds, where they mix with the natural uranium that is already there. Typical activity concentrations of uranium in air are around 2 µBq per cubic metre. (UNSCEAR 2000). - ibid
- charliebwrites 1mo agoI’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 1mo agoPantex 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex
- porkpieshoe 1mo agoPantex doesn't power a panopticon, nor does it threaten my livelihood.
- porkpieshoe 1mo agoSince I got downvoted for posting that, I'll also add that Pantex doesn't cause a sudden and massive spike in electricity usage, with the potential for related costs to be socialized into my bill.
- Legend2440 1mo ago>Private enterprise enriching uranium is a seriously worrying development... Or seriously exciting. We might actually get affordable, clean nuclear energy this century.
- philipkglass 1mo agoUrenco USA is a private enterprise that enriches uranium. It built its first American enrichment plant 20 years ago, and lately it has been expanding capacity: https://urencousa.com/about/our-history https://urencousa.com/about/our-history The parent Urenco company has been operating private uranium enrichment plants in Europe since the 1970s.
- rotringlvr 1mo ago[dead]
- tmp10423288442 1mo agoIran is essentially finished at this point - they no longer have control over the Strait of Hormuz, and oil is rapidly flowing through the strait (to say nothing of the oil already exported via other pipelines, or the impetus the war gave to accelerate pipelines under construction, such as the Iraq-Turkey pipeline).
- git_rancher 1mo agoA 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 1mo 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 1mo agoIt'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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separative_work_units
- dopa42365 1mo ago5% enrichment (regular reactor grade) is 2/3 the way to weapons grade already. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... Hence there technically being no enrichment cap for any country that signed the NPT and stuff (not to be confused with protection from US bombs or rogue states that never signed the NPT).
- leonidasrup 1mo agoThe 90% level is not a strict number. You can have nuclear explosion with lower levels of enrichment, but the total mass of the uranium is very large, therefor not a practical weapon. For example you need 100kg of 60% enriched Uranium-235 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Critical-mass-of-a-bare-metal-uranium-sphere-depending-on-the-type-of-fissile-isotope-and_fig1_366266734 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Critical-mass-of-a-bare-...
- 1mo ago
- datakan 1mo ago[flagged]
- cicko 1mo agoNo. Economic sanctions are in right now. Maybe tomorrow.
- lotsofpulp 1mo agoMight make it more walkable.
- chasd00 1mo agohah probably help cool things off too.
- theredleft 1mo agoHegseth is on it
- doodlebugging 1mo agoIf they do I hope they leave Deep Elum alone. Some nice venues there for local, regional, and much more well-known bands. Also a few good restaurants in the area.
- fodkodrasz 1mo agoSo 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron
- bpodgursky 1mo agoThat's fine
- fodkodrasz 1mo agoTotally agree, just summarized what I found in the press release. Even boring engineering is honest work, and this is not boring, even if not cutting edge in my understanding. Nuclear operations have their special challenges which need special care, also from engineering side. Still I think this is less of an engineering news. Anyways, I didn't mean to downplay it.
- jabl 1mo agoIIRC 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 1mo 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_laser_excitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_isotopes_by_lase...
- Legend2440 1mo agoThey 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.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- josefritzishere 1mo agoI have a bad feeling.
- futura_heavy 1mo agoIs it the menacing guys in the photo, or that headache-inducing logo?
- jmward01 1mo agoThe logo. Definitely the logo. It both sucks you in and repels you at the same time. 'eye catching' to say the least, but so are laser pointers.
- peri-cl 1mo 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 https://isotopes.gov/Ytterbium-176_is_Available_Now [ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutetium_(177Lu)_vipivotide_tetraxetan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutetium_(177Lu)_vipivotide_te... [iii] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40690196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40690196 ("Radioactive drugs strike cancer with precision (knowablemagazine.org)")
- benabbott 1mo ago[flagged]
- yieldcrv 1mo agoI like the part where you act like they would have ever had images otherwise
- pavel_lishin 1mo agoThat would have been fine.
- kaashif 1mo agoPointless images are bad. Like those images at the top of blog posts, I didn't like those pre AI.
- AbraKdabra 1mo ago[flagged]
- margalabargala 1mo agoOnly if you round down, because you're right, most internet traffic these days are bots anyway. The bots definitely don't care if you AI generate your writing. Many humans do care if you AI generate your writing, and won't read it if it's blatant. But as you say, the humans are a tiny fraction of total net traffic, who cares.
- jryle70 1mo agoWhy is it careless? and how do you know they didn't invest effort in the homepage, maybe even more with AI than if they didn't use it. Plenty of human made websites with terrible graphics. We'd complain, but we wouldn't say the content is worthless because the art looks bad.
- shevy-java 1mo agoThey 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.
- ortusdux 1mo agoI'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/2026/08/26/3351397/0/en/engineering-study-provides-independent-assessment-of-commercial-scale-development-pathway-for-supercritical-materials-seawater-uranium-platform.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/26/335139...
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- leonidasrup 1mo agoWill it be economic source uranium? Current price of uranium is quite low. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uranium https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uranium
- ortusdux 1mo agoIf you look at the 10y plot you will see the price is about $90/lb, up from $30/lb 6 years ago. Their target has been $55/lb, so the dramatic price increase is working in their favor. That being said, I think their initial customer base would be the US government, who has no issue spending extra for domestic material.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- nfnm 1mo ago[dead]
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- uygiugiu 1mo agoGeneral Matter is also working on HALEU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Matter
- doodlebugging 1mo ago[flagged]
- chuckadams 1mo agoYou can bet your sweet patootie that even under the current government, any company producing radioactive isotopes is not operating without regulation or supervision.
- gfalcao 1mo agowow
- netik 1mo agoThis is highly dangerous, right? If a bad actor possess centrifuge technology and can divert this <20% enriched uranium, they are essentially days or weeks away from achieving weapons-grade material. This severely reduces the "breakout time" the international community relies on to detect and stop nuclear proliferation.
- AngryData 1mo agoCentrifuge and nuclear technology is not some latest and greatest super complicated and barely understood technology with hard to source components anymore. Old restrictions like ball bearings quality on export and such are basically meaningless today. You can buy common tooling today from China that would trounce anything people were using 60 years ago and nobody has stopped people from studying and researching nuclear technologies. It is mostly a matter of money and international politics now. It takes a significant amount of money to build and power, and it is hard to hide the scale of building and power usage from international watchdogs. Because nothing consumes tons of energy and doesn't output tons of product to sell except for nuclear material refinement for weapons.
- jjk166 1mo ago> it is hard to hide the scale of building and power usage from international watchdogs. Because nothing consumes tons of energy and doesn't output tons of product to sell except for nuclear material refinement for weapons. Until datacenters
- fc417fc802 1mo agoJust wait, we might well have some sort of AI nonproliferation effort soon enough. I eagerly await any chip under 5 nm being subject to national security regulations.
- jjk166 1mo agoIf the bad actor has centrifuge technology and access to low enriched uranium, they are already weeks away from achieving weapons grade material. If a country with Iran's enrichment capabilities had a sufficient LEU stockpile swapped for an equivalent amount of HALEU, it would shave about 7 days off the time necessary to produce a bomb's worth of weapons grade uranium. For nations with enrichment capabilities, enrichment is not a major contributor to overall breakout time. Enrichment doesn't take much time, it's building enrichment facilities that takes a while, especially clandestinely.
- broccoluvr 1mo agowhy dudes look so mean in the picture.. chill out kings