(www.actinideinc.com)
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)")
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?
The article has to be read carefully. "On Actinide's engineering estimates, a single Fortitude machine would provide roughly half the isotope-separation capacity of the U.S. government's current electromagnetic fleet."
The "U.S. government's current electromagnetic fleet" is tiny. Oak Ridge is building a modest plant.[1] Idaho has a benchtop-sized separator. That's what Actinide is comparing against. Not the rows of basketball court sized calutrons from WWII. So the announcement gives the impression of a larger operation than it really is.
> Speaking of which, whatever happened to laser enrichment? That was apparently very promising at some point?
That is a very good question. A company called Silex, and their subsidiary Global Laser Enrichment, has been trying to commercialize this for years.[3][4] Exactly how they do this is classified.[5]
There's another startup in this area, crawling along, underfunded, but building something.[6]
Meanwhile, URENCO continues to operate a centrifuge plant in New Mexico.[7] URENCO is a a European company, and seems to be the leader in centifuge technology. Units in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US.
I've been expecting something big to happen in the laser enrichment area since the 1990s, but it never has. This suggest that it either doesn't work very well or is being suppressed because it works too well.
[1] https://www.energy.gov/science/articles/doe-expands-stable-i...
[2] https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/content/uploads/50/2026/04...
>"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.
At least uranium isn’t actually all that radioactive.
Nothing. This is a company that specializes in making medical isotopes, which is something Calutrons are good for - you need high levels of enrichment in a single step, you don't need to process large quantities, and the energy consumption doesn't matter. Any talk of using it for reactor fuel production is pure PR spin.
So calutrons will always be less energy efficient than centrifuges, but if the capital cost and construction time is low enough, calutrons might still be economically viable.
It can do, but won't do so reliably; and the guessing it does if it's not grounding with a search is still like someone in a pub saying "I recon…". Admittedly, a Cambridge pub like the Carlton Arms used to be when I lived there (sometimes I'd be the only one at the table who wasn't studying for a PhD), but still, pub.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_isotopes_by_lase...
The other thing is that for a nuclear reactor, you need many kilograms of uranium. But for a Pluvicto patient, you need less than a gram of ytterbium.
yes, i'd have expected that laser enrichment would be more preferable technology for modern development
Anyways, I didn't mean to downplay it.
Calutrons are using the same principle of separating ions by their mass/charge ratio, just in a preparative scale (you want to collect what is separated) rather than analytical (you just want to know how much of what).
A mass spec used as an instrument measures the components of a substance, this is just the same concept for actual separation of components not just to look at them
Lot's of non-nuclear weapons states do have access, the Netherlands for example enriches more uranium annually than the UK. It's the components of centrifuges that are tightly controlled. Building enrichment facilities is well within the capabilities of pretty much any nation state, it's doing it secretly which is the hard part.
This alternative technique only makes sense at extremely small quantities. For their primary market of making medical isotopes, it makes a lot of sense. For nuclear reactor fuel it's incredibly impractical.
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.
I don't recall us bombing Pakistan, India, Israel, China, or North Korea.
> Nuclear nonproliferation relies on active enforcement.
The comedy hour at HN has arrived. See above ^^^
As far as i know, USA was seriously considering doing this in 1964. However the soviets said that would mean war, so they didn't.
North Korea is so firmly in China and Russia's sphere of influence that bombing them would be hard, especially given how much conventional weapons they have pointed at south korea. That said, would you really want to be north korea? economic warfare has done a number on them. in many ways they are the poster child for nuke != winning.
Israel probably snuck through by doing it early enough and secretively enough that it was fait accompli. They probably tested their nukes before the nuclear non proliferation treaty was even signed.
so really you have india and pakistan. The fact there are so few exceptions kind of proves the system works.
> Nuclear nonproliferation relies on active enforcement.
It relies on getting nukes being an irrational move for most countries. Yes part of that is your enemies will start preventive wars to stop that. A very major part of it is the economic consequences of developing nukes is usually not worth it. Part of it is the smart strategy is to just do most of the work and stop before getting nukes - if shit hits the fan you can get nukes quickly, but going up to the line without crossing it has none of the negative consequences.
There are many, many steps before "drop bombs".
low-enrichment (~20%) is what's happening here.
the bad stuff, for nukes, is ~90% 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).
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/26/335139...
[0] https://www.discipulusventures.com/ [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2025/02/10/silicon-v... (paywall)
Interesting revival of or use of old technology to accomplish their goal. I'm not sure this belongs as a private tech company. I feel like it should be under the control of the federal government and no, I don't care what the libertarians on HN think about it. This needs to be a regulated company and process with clear reporting responsibilities and permanently disruptive penalties for noncompliance by individuals and the corporation.
[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-high-assay-low-enric... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium
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?
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-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).
Or seriously exciting. We might actually get affordable, clean nuclear energy this century.
https://urencousa.com/about/our-history
The parent Urenco company has been operating private uranium enrichment plants in Europe since the 1970s.
We could reach Lex Luther level villainy in no time at all
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.
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.
This severely reduces the "breakout time" the international community relies on to detect and stop nuclear proliferation.
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.
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.
Until datacenters