Seawater uranium extraction breakthrough addresses US nuclear fuel concerns
US clean tech startup Fluxnium says it has developed a way to economically extract uranium from seawater, potentially unlocking a vast new fuel source as America pursues plans to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2050. The breakthrough matters because yellowcake prices have risen 75% over five years and the US has little uranium within its own borders, leaving it reliant on supplies from countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia, Niger and China, which poses growing geopolitical risk as demand from a nuclear "renaissance" driven partly by AI data centre power needs accelerates.
The ocean holds an estimated four billion metric tonnes of uranium, roughly 50,000 years' worth of supply and a thousand times more than all known hard-rock mines combined. Fluxnium, led by repeat founder Jeff Green, uses polymer fibres developed with US Department of Energy technology to attract dissolved uranium; braided lines are hung from buoys at sea for 30 to 60 days, similar to seaweed farming, then brought ashore and processed into yellowcake without toxic tailings. By increasing the fibres' surface area, the firm has driven extraction costs down from over $200 per pound demonstrated at a national lab towards levels competitive with existing mines, and it has just closed a $7 million seed round led by Congruent Ventures, with Constellation Energy among the backers.
- Fluxnium claims breakthrough in extracting uranium from seawater economically.
- Ocean holds enough uranium for roughly 50,000 years of nuclear fuel.
- Startup raised $7 million seed round backed by Constellation Energy.
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Uranium is the raw material used to fuel nuclear power stations, but it is expensive to mine and the United States has very little of it in its own ground. Most of the uranium used by American nuclear plants is imported from countries including Kazakhstan, Russia, Niger and China, which raises concerns about relying on foreign, sometimes unstable, supply chains, especially as prices for the processed ore have climbed sharply in recent years.
Demand for nuclear power is growing again, partly because it can provide the large, steady supply of electricity needed by data centres that run artificial intelligence systems, and the US has set a target of tripling its nuclear capacity by 2050. This has intensified interest in finding new, more secure sources of uranium rather than depending on a small number of overseas mines.
One largely untapped source is seawater, which is thought to hold vastly more uranium, dissolved in tiny concentrations, than all the world's land-based mines combined. Extracting it economically has long been seen as technically difficult and costly, which is the challenge that companies working in this area, such as the startup mentioned here, are trying to solve.
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Originally published by TechCrunch as “Clean tech startup Fluxnium found a way to tap 50,000 years worth of nuclear fuel”.