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Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

actinideinc.com

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Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#51

Post by KennyBlanken »

p1mrx wrote: post #38
jabl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 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.

If we wanted to find out what an LLM thought we'd ask the LLM. Don't be a meat proxy.

https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#53

Post by numpad0 »

shevy-java wrote: post #22
fodkodrasz wrote: post #7

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

But mass spectrometers don't use uranium.

sounds like this is similar to doing basic paper chromatography and cutting out the strip with scissors just to get the desired substance, spectrometry as means to produce the material rather than means to analyze

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#54

Post by ta988 »

Legend2440 wrote: post #28
jabl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

yeah they don't talk about cleaning them either... that's a massive problem in this kind of ion separation techniques, things splatter and stick everywhere.

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#55

Post by colechristensen »

shevy-java wrote: post #22
fodkodrasz wrote: post #7

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

But mass spectrometers don't use uranium.

Mass spec is about separating things by mass... exactly what enrichment requires.

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

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#56

Post by colechristensen »

Legend2440 wrote: post #19
git_rancher wrote: post #3

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.

>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.

It's not difficult from a conceptual engineering perspective but it is difficult from an industrial scale perspective. It requires a tremendous amount of hardware and energy and precision equipment.

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#57

Post by KennyBlanken »

Legend2440 wrote: post #19
git_rancher wrote: post #3

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.

>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.

Nuclear nonproliferation relies on surveillance/monitoring and statecraft.

There are many, many steps before "drop bombs".

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#58

Post by tmp10423288442 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #51
p1mrx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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.

If we wanted to find out what an LLM thought we'd ask the LLM. Don't be a meat proxy. https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/

But you weren't going to ask the LLM, and now you know something you weren't aware of. Seems no different than someone reporting what they found out in a Google Search, as long as they disclose that they used an LLM (as long as they used one that actually searches the web, but pretty sure even ChatGPT Free does that these days).

Re: Actinide is first startup to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)

#59

Post by tmp10423288442 »

johnea wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Iran 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).
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