Billionaire Peter Thiel backing first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility in Paducah

[Flyaway]

A California-based company with ties to billionaire investor and Trump ally Peter Thiel announced plans Friday to build America’s first U.S.-owned, privately developed facility to enrich uranium in far western Kentucky.

In an email sent to WKMS, General Matter said that the company intends to make a “historic investment in American nuclear infrastructure” by restoring a shuttered facility in Paducah. The gaseous diffusion plant in McCracken County, which ceased operations in 2013, was built by the U.S. government in the 1950s to bolster national defense efforts – and later to generate fuel for nuclear power plants.

https://www.wkms.org/energy/2025-07...ped-us-uranium-enrichment-facility-in-paducah
The new plant will be run by figures closely tied to Elon Musk, with former SpaceX and Tesla executives high in the pecking order.

 

[Grey Havoc]

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/us-uranium-enrichment-startup-emerges-from-stealth

 

[publiusr]

Uranium may even play a role in superconductivity:
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-superconductivity-halo-theoretical-physicist-rare.html
A puzzling form of superconductivity that arises only under strong magnetic fields has been mapped and explained by a research team including Andriy Nevidomskyy, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University.

In UTe2, superconductivity vanished below 10 Tesla, a field strength that is already immense by conventional standards, but surprisingly reemerged at field strengths exceeding 40 Tesla.

This unexpected revival has been dubbed the Lazarus phase. Researchers determined that this phase critically depends on the angle of the applied magnetic field in relation to the crystal structure.

In collaboration with experimental colleagues at UMD and NIST, Nevidomskyy decided to map out the angular dependence of this high-field superconducting state. Their precise measurements revealed that the phase formed a toroidal, or donutlike, halo surrounding a specific crystalline axis.

From:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn7673

 

[Scott Kenny]

Uranium may even play a role in superconductivity:
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-superconductivity-halo-theoretical-physicist-rare.html
A puzzling form of superconductivity that arises only under strong magnetic fields has been mapped and explained by a research team including Andriy Nevidomskyy, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University.

In UTe2, superconductivity vanished below 10 Tesla, a field strength that is already immense by conventional standards, but surprisingly reemerged at field strengths exceeding 40 Tesla.

This unexpected revival has been dubbed the Lazarus phase. Researchers determined that this phase critically depends on the angle of the applied magnetic field in relation to the crystal structure.

In collaboration with experimental colleagues at UMD and NIST, Nevidomskyy decided to map out the angular dependence of this high-field superconducting state. Their precise measurements revealed that the phase formed a toroidal, or donutlike, halo surrounding a specific crystalline axis.

From:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adn7673

Huh? So it's not superconducting below 10 Tesla, but then it is superconducting above 40?

 

[NMaude]

Huh? So it's not superconducting below 10 Tesla, but then it is superconducting above 40?

As far as I know the physics of superconductivity are still not fully understood.

 

[shin_getter]

"Mars" needs its own deterrence, I guess~

 

[quellish]

first us owned and privately developed? Has everyone forgotten NUMEC?

That turned out well.

 

[NMaude]

Has everyone forgotten NUMEC?

What is or was NUMEC?

 

[TwoTribes]

NUMEC 是什么？或者曾经是什么？

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_affair

 

[DWG]

A uranium enrichment facility owned by a right-wing extremist* with his own private intelligence agency who doesn't believe in democracy? Well, there's the plot of the new James Bond film sorted.

* Seriously, look up Thiel's stated views.

 

[Archibald]

A uranium enrichment facility owned by a right-wing extremist* with his own private intelligence agency who doesn't believe in democracy? Well, there's the plot of the new James Bond film sorted.

* Seriously, look up Thiel's stated views.

You nailed it.

 

[TwoTribes]

一个铀浓缩设施的主人竟然是一个右翼极端分子*，还拥有自己的私人情报机构，而且他根本不相信民主？好吧，新詹姆斯·邦德电影的剧情就是这样的。

* 认真地查阅一下 Thiel 所表达的观点。

Moreover, his friend owns a space company with many "shuttles." OMG, Moonraker!!!

 

[Flyaway]

A uranium enrichment facility owned by a right-wing extremist* with his own private intelligence agency who doesn't believe in democracy? Well, there's the plot of the new James Bond film sorted.

* Seriously, look up Thiel's stated views.

Maybe not so much now that Bond is owned by Amazon!!!

 

[publiusr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_affair

Some of that wind up in the Vela event?