Hexium

Today, we’re taking a major leap forward to restore U.S. leadership in nuclear fuel. I’m proud to announce Hexium’s strategic collaboration with TerraPower, Oklo Inc, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to accelerate domestic HALEU enrichment at industrial scale. Why this matters: - The U.S. needs 40 metric tons of high-assay low-enriched uranium HALEU annually by the early 2030s. - But less than 1 metric ton has been produced domestically since 2023. - Without a commercial HALEU supply, advanced reactor deployment stalls. Our partners at TerraPower and Oklo know first-hand that solving the isotope enrichment bottleneck is critical to scaling advanced nuclear reactors, not decades from now, but today. Through this partnership I’m excited to spend more time with my old colleagues at LLNL while we demonstrate the winning technoeconomic model unlocked by our modern approach to laser isotope enrichment. We’re honored to work alongside these leaders in advanced nuclear to secure a future with abundant clean energy. Read more about our partnership and how Hexium’s AVLIS approach is fueling the nuclear renaissance: https://lnkd.in/gxq9hSrS

In the seventies, the US developed a laser-based technology that could pull apart atoms at will. Then, it vanished into secrecy. This is my profile of Hexium Inc, a company now reviving this long-forgotten tech to build a new atomic supply chain. Isotopes, like uranium-235 or lithium-6, are critical for powering fission and fusion reactors. But for a long time, the best ways of doing this were woefully inefficient and dirty. The K-25 plant in Oak Ridge used up 5% of all US electricity to do it in the 1950s. Then came AVLIS — atomic vapor laser isotope separation. With a few precise laser beams, the exact isotopes needed could be separated by selectively ionizing and collecting them, leading to far higher rates of enrichment, using far less energy. By the 1990s, AVLIS could produce metric tons of enriched uranium, but just as it was ready to commercialize, the USSR collapsed and Russia flooded the US market with cheap U-235, initially intended for its nuclear warheads. It powered America's grid, but it also killed AVLIS. America stopped nearly all production of relevant isotopes, relying on stockpiles it had accumulated during the 60s. But industry didn't stop needing them. Now, as fusion reactors desperately need lithium-6 to breed tritium and novel molten salt reactors need lithium-7 to generate fission power sustainably, the country has had nowhere to turn — until now. Charlie Jarrott & Jacob Peterson started Hexium to finally commercialize AVLIS technology once and for all. They're starting with enriching lithium-6 and lithium-7, but the sky is the limit. This is the story of their quest to build the Dow Chemical of isotopes. https://lnkd.in/g6Axmgnt

Fusion has a fuel problem. And it’s not just a technical gap, it’s a supply chain problem. No infrastructure. No commercial readiness. No path to scale. So we started building... Hexium Inc is focused on solving the materials bottleneck for next-gen energy, starting with lithium isotopes. Central to fusion, fission, and national security. We’re leveraging forgotten technologies, using lasers to separate with precision, and building systems that can scale. https://lnkd.in/gMKwCDaq Grateful to Tim De Chant for writing the first piece on our work, and to TechCrunch for covering it. Huge thanks to our lead investors MaC Venture Capital and Refactor for backing us early. More to come. #fusionenergy #nuclearenergy #nuclearsecurity MaC Venture Capital, Refactor, R7, Overture Ventures, Julian Shapiro, Humba Ventures, Sweet Spot Capital, Great Wave Ventures, Climate Capital, Reinforced Ventures, Andrew Côté, Carly Anderson, Nathan Mintz, Christina O’Conor, Mike Mettler, Leonardo Banchik, Jeff Schox