A startup just cracked America's HALEU fuel bottleneck
Dallas-based Actinide says it became the first startup ever to enrich natural uranium into HALEU, assaying the fuel at 15.38% U-235. That matters because the U.S. has zero domestic HALEU supply, yet most next-gen reactor designs require it. Actinide's calutrons also sidestep the gas-to-solid conversion bottleneck entirely, outputting solid enriched fuel directly in months on machines that cost a few hundred thousand dollars.