JANESVILLE — SHINE Technologies is using a federal loan to help haul its Chrysalis facility project over the finish line. The nuclear fusion company says its continued aim is to change the future of global medical products.
The United States Department of Energy issued a $263 million conditional loan to complete the project. CEO and founder Greg Piefer said that tough financial markets slowed the project down. The loan is meant to boost production and the workforce.
Chrysalis will be a high-volume medical isotope production facility off Highway 51 in Janesville. In Chrysalis, SHINE plans to manufacture molybdenum-99 and other isotopes to treat cancer and heart disease. It will be the most advanced of its kind when completed.
When completed, Chrysalis will lead the domestic supply of moly 99, a material used to illuminate bone and body tissue in diagnostic imaging. Technetium, another product manufactured by SHINE, is made from moly 99.
A project dating back as far as 2011, Chrysalis has been moving in a slow pattern for more than a decade. The sluggish progress is tied to tough financial markets, Piefer said.
“This allows us to move at full speed and finish the project and take it to full capacity, so we’re incredibly excited to be here,” Piefer said. “We’re absolutely poised and ready to take advantage of this, moving the plant through production capacity and frankly change the way the world makes these important medical products.”
It’s expected that production in Chrysalis will start in about 18 months and commercial operations will begin in about two to three years.
Peifer sees the project, in part, as a long-running quest in the fight against a common killer: heart disease.
“The number one killer of people in this country is heart disease, number two is cancer,” he said. “So, being able to detect heart disease early with these isotopes is really critical.”
Piefer referenced his father, who he said was a victim of an isotope shortage during a period when he was having chest pains.
“If there had been more of a stable supply chain of technetium, one of the products we make, I think he would have gotten the right test. What the ultrasound told him was, ‘Go home, you’re pretty fine,’ so ignore the chest pain basically,” Piefer said.
Two weeks later, Piefer’s father was rushed back to a hospital after a massive heart attack caused by a 99% blockage in the left anterior artery, a major artery to the heart.
Department of Energy Director of Energy Dominance Financing Greg Beard touted Chrysalis’ creation of hundreds of construction jobs and 200 permanent jobs for the region.
SHINE’s long-term corporate goals are to research and develop clean fusion energy, and nuclear fuel recycling technology. Beard cited Chrysalis’ tilt toward completion as putting SHINE on the road toward major nuclear energy goals.
“Hopefully this is the first of the main steps to bring cheaper power to America, and that’s what we need, more viable affordable energy, and it’s places like that can bring it to us in the future,” Beard said.
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil said that Chrysalis’ near completion was further proof that Janesville and Rock County has the best workforce in the world.
“This area, Janesville and Rock County, has the best workforce anywhere in the world. Given the opportunity, we can outcompete anyone. Absolutely anyone. This partnership with the federal government gives us the capability to do that,” Steil said.
The loan is conditional on technical, legal, environmental and financial conditions. The Department of Energy is banking on this decreasing foreign dependence on isotopes.