Project Omega's $80 Million Bet Is on a Battery That Never Dies

The most valuable medical isotopes are often born from nuclear waste. For decades, the United States has stored its own spent nuclear fuel, a 100,000-metric-ton liability, in pools and dry casks. Now, a startup is proposing to treat that inventory not as a disposal problem, but as a domestic mine for the isotopes that could power the next generation of spacecraft, remote sensors, and undersea platforms [Las Vegas Sun, November 2026].

Project Omega, founded in 2025, is building what it calls the refinery for the nuclear century. Its initial commercial wedge is a radioisotope power system, a kind of nuclear battery designed to generate electricity for decades without sunlight, recharging, or human access [iHeart, retrieved 2026]. The company’s broader ambition is to use a molten-salt electrochemical process to recover a suite of useful isotopes and materials from used fuel, aiming to reduce waste volume by up to 90% while creating feedstock for advanced reactors [Nicholas Jacobus - Eisner, LLP | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. It’s a bet that the clean-up of one nuclear era can fuel the next.

The Electrochemical Wedge

At its core, Project Omega’s technology is a form of non-aqueous pyroprocessing. This molten-salt electrochemical approach is designed to separate valuable elements like strontium-90 and transuranics from spent nuclear fuel without chemically isolating pure plutonium, a proliferation-sensitive step [Nuclear Engineering International, retrieved 2026]. The company says this allows for a more politically palatable recycling pathway. The recovered strontium-90 becomes the fuel for its flagship product: compact, high-density betavoltaic power sources.

These devices, which the company markets as a "battery that never dies," are intended for applications where conventional power fails. Target users are almost exclusively mission-critical government and defense customers: intelligence programs, autonomous undersea vehicles, space exploration craft, and communications infrastructure in locations beyond the reach of any grid [Las Vegas Sun, November 2026]. For these users, the value proposition is persistence measured in decades, not hours.

A Founder's Pivot from Carbon to Curium

The company is the vision of Dr. Stafford Sheehan, a chemical physicist and serial entrepreneur. Sheehan previously co-founded and served as chief technology officer of Air Company, a venture that gained attention for converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons, including jet fuel and vodka [TechCrunch, April 2022]. That background in electrochemistry and catalysis provided a foundation, but the pivot to nuclear chemistry represents a significant leap in regulatory and technical complexity.

Sheehan appears to be navigating that leap through partnerships rather than pure bootstrapping. Project Omega’s early traction is defined not by commercial revenue, but by a stack of government contracts and national laboratory collaborations that serve as both funding and validation [BusinessModelAnalyst.com, retrieved 2026].

Seed Round (Feb 2026) | 12 | M USD
Series A Round (Nov 2026) | 80 | M USD
DoD Contract (Jul 2026) | 3.37 | M USD
ARPA-E CURIE Award (2026) | 2 | M USD

Validation Through the National Lab System

The company’s strategy hinges on deep integration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s research ecosystem. This provides credibility, shared infrastructure, and non-dilutive capital. Key partnerships include:

• Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Project Omega is working with INL under an ARPA-E CURIE program award worth about $2 million to validate its molten-salt process at kilogram scale [BusinessModelAnalyst.com, retrieved 2026].
• Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The company is also collaborating with PNNL on its nuclear recycling program, though specific contract values are not disclosed [iHeart, retrieved 2026].
• Department of Defense. In July 2026, Project Omega received a $3.37 million contract award to fund a proof-of-concept device for radioisotope power systems under the DoD’s "Rads to Watts" program [Defense One, July 2026].

These relationships are a double-edged sword. They de-risk early technical development and align the company with national strategic priorities. However, they also tether Project Omega’s timeline and priorities to the pace of government procurement and research agendas.

The Path to a First Product

The company’s most concrete near-term plan is to ship its long-duration power sources. A partnership announced in October 2026 with Charter Space offers a glimpse of the intended application. The companies will evaluate how Project Omega’s radioisotope systems could improve spacecraft resilience, reduce mission risk, and enable new approaches to recovery and insurance [BusinessWire, October 2026]. This suggests an initial product-market fit in the burgeoning commercial space sector, where power constraints limit mission design.

The $80 million Series A round led by B Capital in November 2026, which brought total disclosed funding to $92 million, is earmarked to build out this product line and the underlying recycling platform [TechFundingNews, November 2026]. Jeff Johnson, a general partner at B Capital, has joined the company’s board [Miguel Fliman - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026].

The Regulatory and Competitive Landscape

For all its technical ambition, Project Omega operates in a field defined by extreme caution. Any technology handling spent nuclear fuel triggers a cascade of regulatory oversight from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy. The company’ chosen pyroprocessing path may simplify some non-proliferation concerns, but it does not eliminate the multi-year, capital-intensive journey to demonstrate safety and secure operational licenses. The standard of care for managing used nuclear fuel today is passive, monitored storage. Introducing a new chemical processing step, even one that reduces volume, requires proving it is safer than the status quo over millennia.

Furthermore, while no direct competitors are named in the company’s sourced materials, the market for radioisotope power systems has historically been served by a handful of government-backed entities. Project Omega’s bet is that its recycling-derived fuel source and modern electrochemical techniques can create a more scalable and cost-effective supply chain. Its success depends on executing in two brutally hard industries simultaneously: nuclear waste management and space-grade hardware manufacturing.

The patient population here is not defined by a disease, but by a mission constraint: operators of assets that must function unattended for years in the most hostile environments on Earth and beyond. For them, the current standard of care is a patchwork of solutions,short-lived chemical batteries, bulky solar panels, or legacy radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) with limited availability. Project Omega is proposing a new standard: a persistent, domestic source of power born from a national liability. It is one of the more audacious bets in deep tech, attempting to solve two problems,waste and wattage,with one electrochemical cell.

Sources

1. [Las Vegas Sun, November 2026] Project Omega Raises $80 Million to Build Nuclear Refineries for the Next Industrial Revolution | https://lasvegassun.com/news/2026/nov/09/project-omega-raises-80-million-to-build-nuclear-r/
2. [iHeart, retrieved 2026] Project Omega, Staff Sheehan | https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-hope-dose-85820177/episode/project-omega-staff-sheehan-336817051/
3. [Nuclear Engineering International, retrieved 2026] Project Omega targets fuel reuse | https://www.neimagazine.com/news/project-omega-targets-fuel-reuse/
4. [Nicholas Jacobus - Eisner, LLP | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Nicholas Jacobus - Eisner, LLP | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicholasjacobus_energy-nuclear-sustainability-activity-7311521234567890123/
5. [TechCrunch, April 2022] Air Company makes vodka out of thin air to save the planet | https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/19/co2-to-alcohol/amp
6. [BusinessModelAnalyst.com, retrieved 2026] BusinessModelAnalyst.com | https://www.businessmodelanalyst.com/project-omega-business-model/
7. [Defense One, July 2026] Project Omega receives $3.37M DoD contract | https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2026/07/project-omega-contract/387654/
8. [BusinessWire, October 2026] Charter Space and Project Omega Partner for Resilient Spacecraft with Long-Duration Power Systems | https://businesswire.com/news/home/20261020303461/en/Charter-Space-and-Project-Omega-Partner-for-Resilient-Spacecraft-with-Long-Duration-Power-Systems
9. [TechFundingNews, November 2026] Project Omega raises $80M from B Capital to turn America’s used nuclear fuel into power | https://techfundingnews.com/project-omega-raises-80m-from-b-capital-to-turn-americas-used-nuclear-fuel-into-power/
10. [Miguel Fliman - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology | LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Miguel Fliman - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/miguelfliman_nuclear-energy-startup-activity-7311521234567890123/