Why nuclear fusion? It doesn’t produce harmful long-term radioactive waste as a by-product like nuclear fission, explained Gerald Kulcinski, director emeritus of fusion technology at UW-Madison. Fission is the splitting of one atom into two, while fusion combines two or more atoms to make a larger particle, he explained. 

One example of a near term application of nuclear fusion tech is is SHINE Technologies continued pursuance of the commercial procurement of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), which decays into a medical isotope used to detect heart disease, cancer and other conditions. It is a compound that is known to be used in over 40,000 diagnostic medical procedures each day.

“The $70 million is focused on three aspects of the business,” said CEO Greg Piefer. The company now has more than 250 employees, and Piefer said the money is getting SHINE Technologies closer to profitability. 

The company is ramping up SHINE Technologies’ imaging business, the increased production for lutecium (also known as Lu-77) and boosting the company’s neutron inspection and radiation effects testing businesses, he said. 

Lu-77, the company said, is a radioactive agent that, when paired with a cancer-seeking molecule, delivers highly targeted radiation to cancer cells so it kills the bad cancer cells without harming healthy human cells, Piefer explained. 

Helping along the production of Lu-77 is SHINE’s recent opening of its Cassiopeia building at its Janesville campus, which SHINE says is the largest Lu-77 production facility in North America.

When the building is at full operational capacity, expected in 2024, it will be capable of producing up to 200,000 doses cancer treatments per year, the company said. 

SHINE Technologies is adding other buildings to both its Janesville campus, and is expected to open a facility in the Netherlands, too.

Planned to be the largest medical isotope production facility in North America, SHINE’s Chrysalis building is expected to complete construction in 2025. The Netherlands facility is expected to become operational in 2027, SHINE said. Both businesses are slated to be capable of production 20 million Mo-99 doses per year, according to the company.

Already operational businesses for SHINE Technologies include Building One in Janesville, which tests new nuclear fusion tech, as well as the company’s neutron imaging and radiation effects testing and manufacturing and equipment fabrication facilities in Fitchburg, known as Phoenix and Heliopolis, respectively. 

Piefer thinks the company attracted the $70 million because SHINE last summer was able to show the first visible evidence of energy production via nuclear fusion. 

Fusion energy has been detected before, Kulcinski of UW-Madison explained, but SHINE was the first company to demonstrate visible evidence in the form of Cherenkov radiation, which is energy that is emitted when charged particles that make up atoms move faster than the speed of light through water, and is visible as a blue glow. 

Piefer said that SHINE Technologies has overall demonstrated that nuclear fusion can be competitive with companies that still use nuclear fission – yet another reason for the investment.

The eventual hope in the overall scientific community is for nuclear fusion to be used as an energy source that can replace fossil fuels. In June, two Madison-area companies – Realta Fusion and Type One Energy Group – were among eight U.S. businesses awarded a total of $46 million to try and curb the world’s climate crisis through nuclear fusion. 

Both companies are creating devices to create electricity using nuclear fusion. 

“I would say by the 2050s we will be producing electricity by nuclear fusion,” Kulcinski, of UW-Madison, said.