Dallas startup Actinide becomes first to enrich uranium, producing HALEU
Dallas startup enriches Uranium
Actinide, a Dallas-based advanced materials company, has become the first startup to enrich natural uranium into high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), a fuel critical for advanced nuclear reactors but currently unavailable from domestic suppliers. Using its first-generation calutron, the company produced HALEU at 15.38% enrichment, bypassing the traditional centrifuge and deconversion bottleneck. The company plans to scale up with its second-generation system, Fortitude, aiming to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign enrichment.
America should not have to ask another country for the materials that determine whether a reactor runs or a cancer treatment gets made.
- peri-cl
> "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)")
- fodkodrasz
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.
- git_rancher
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.
- ortusdux
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...
- netik
This 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.