A Janesville, Wisconsin company that uses fusion neutron generators to produce medical isotopes, inspect industrial components, and process nuclear waste — building a profitable fusion-neutron business today while developing a pathway to fusion energy.
SHINE Technologies was founded in 2010 by Greg Piefer, a nuclear engineer who studied under Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Piefer's insight was that fusion neutrons have enormous commercial value even without net energy gain. By building accelerator-driven deuterium-tritium neutron sources, SHINE could serve immediate markets — medical isotope production, nondestructive testing, and nuclear waste treatment — while generating revenue to fund a longer-term path toward fusion energy.1
SHINE's neutron-generation technology uses a deuterium-tritium beam-target system. A linear accelerator drives deuterium ions into a tritium-containing target, producing 14.1 MeV fusion neutrons. This is not a self-sustaining fusion reaction — the system consumes far more energy than it produces — but each neutron is a valuable industrial product.
For medical isotope production, the neutrons irradiate a low-enriched uranium target to produce molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), which decays to technetium-99m (Tc-99m), the most widely used diagnostic isotope in nuclear medicine. Approximately 40 million medical imaging procedures worldwide use Tc-99m each year. Historically, Mo-99 has been produced in aging research reactors, several of which have shut down or face closure, creating supply vulnerability.3
SHINE's approach eliminates the need for highly enriched uranium (HEU) targets, which pose proliferation concerns, and for research reactors, which are expensive to build and operate. The fusion-neutron source is compact, can be sited in an industrial facility, and uses low-enriched uranium, aligning with U.S. nonproliferation policy.
Beyond medical isotopes, SHINE operates in two additional segments. Its nondestructive testing division uses neutron and X-ray imaging to inspect aerospace components, defense hardware, and industrial equipment. Neutron radiography can reveal internal features — corrosion, voids, hydrogen contamination — invisible to conventional X-rays.4
The company's nuclear services division is developing neutron-based transmutation technology to treat nuclear waste. By bombarding certain long-lived fission products or actinides with neutrons, it may be possible to convert them into shorter-lived or stable isotopes, reducing the volume and hazard of high-level waste.
SHINE's long-term vision extends beyond neutron products to fusion energy generation. The company views its current business as a stepping stone: each generation of neutron source builds engineering experience with tritium handling, neutron shielding, and remote maintenance — exactly the capabilities a future fusion power plant will require. Whether SHINE itself builds that power plant or licenses its technology to others remains an open question, but the company's revenue-generating neutron business gives it a durability rare among fusion ventures.