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].
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.
>"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.
Take these numbers with a grain of salt because I got them by chatting with AIs, but if you're producing electricity from HALEU, then centrifuges require reinvesting <1% of the output, whereas historical calutrons required 200% (useless) and modern technology could potentially bring that down to 10%.
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.
Totally 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.
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).
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.
Only 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.
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.
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.
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%.
Investors groups include: Neo Ventures - SE European VC group with mostly Bulgarian leadership and a diverse portfolio that doesn't mention Actinide at all; Mana Ventures - one of their companies is Flock Safety, the ubiquitous surveillance company in the recent news; Discipulus Ventures - MAGA supporting religious nutjobs from their own description in their opening paragraph [0], and from Forbes (paywalled) [1];
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.
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.
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]
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.
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).
Urenco 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:
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)")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calutron
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?
>"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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_isotopes_by_lase...
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.
https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/
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.
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).
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.
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.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/26/335139...
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.
low-enrichment (~20%) is what's happening here.
the bad stuff, for nukes, is ~90% enrichment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separative_work_units
[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.
With Texas, I'm not so sure...
Private enterprise enriching uranium is a seriously worrying development...
[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%.
- ibidOr 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantex
We could reach Lex Luther level villainy in no time at all