The fusion industry last year pulled in more than $900 million of private and public funding in the quest to produce power by smashing atoms together. That brings the total sum invested in the sector to more than $7.1 billion, according to a report out Wednesday from the Fusion Industry Association.
As the world shifts to clean energy and the adoption of power-hungry artificial intelligence surges, there is an increasing urgency to develop and deploy more carbon-free energy. Some are hopeful that fusion power — a nearly infinite energy source that replicates the reactions that power the sun — could be an important solution. The challenge: no one has yet been able to generate fusion energy in a commercially viable way.
But they’re trying.
There are at least 45 companies globally tackling the challenge, with a hub of fusion businesses in the Pacific Northwest.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray on Tuesday toured Helion Energy, and last week Gov. Jay Inslee visited Helion and Zap Energy — two of the leading contenders in the fusion race and both based in Everett, Wash.
Murray and Inslee are proponents of policies supporting the sector. This month, President Biden signed the Fusion Energy Act, a measure led by Murray that facilitates the development of federal permitting regulations for fusion energy. In March, Inslee approved a bill designating fusion as a clean energy source and requiring state agencies to begin developing guidelines for permitting, siting and licensing fusion power plants in Washington state.
And there’s increasing public support for the field. Governments are spending $426 million on fusion energy development this year, according to Fusion Industry Association report. That’s an increase of more than 57% over the previous year.
Fusion skeptics, however, have questioned the fiscal responsibility of spending tax dollars on such an uncertain technology. Others argue that meaningful progress is being made by the companies, and the massive potential pay off is worth the risk.
“I’m convinced that this is a world changing technology — assuming that we can succeed — and that this is a very Washington project because it’s based on ambition and incredible technological talent,” Inslee said during his Helion tour.
Inslee also noted that fusion power shouldn’t be confused with energy generated by nuclear fission, which is the splitting of atoms. Fusion doesn’t create the same sort of radioactive waste as fission and its reactors don’t harbor a risk of meltdowns.
While fusion technology is still unproven, Helion has committed to building power plants for Microsoft and the steel company Nucor. The company is looking at a site in the Eastern Washington town of Chelan as a possible location for the Microsoft plant, among other options.
At its Everett facility, Helion is finishing construction of Polaris, its seventh-generation prototype device, which is expected to start operating this year. It’s also scaling up its production of fusion reactor components.
“We’re building the parts to build fusion,” said Helion CEO David Kirtley during the Inslee visit. “For the first time in the United States, we’re building the electronics, we’re building the components that go into those systems because our goal has been to move. We have very tight timelines.”
A short drive from Helion, Zap is expanding its efforts as well. Zap last year was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of eight companies to receive funding through the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.
On his tour of the company, Inslee saw Zap’s new Century device, a machine built to test multiple, essential functions of the company’s planned fusion reactor.
Zap in April published a research paper documenting the ability to reach temperatures of 11 to 37 million degrees Celsius in their FuZE device — a threshold achieved by few technologies.
“What this team has achieved here is remarkable,” said Scott Hsu, lead fusion coordinator at the DOE, in a statement announcing the milestone.
Despite the progress being made at Helion and Zap, leaders at neither company were willing last week to set a goal for reaching breakeven with their devices, which means the machines are capable of producing more power than is required to create the fusion reaction.
The fusion report released Wednesday cautioned that success in the sector will require continued, significant financial support.
“If funding into private fusion companies only grows at $1 billion per year over the next decade,” the report states, “the industry will not meet its bold targets.”
