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US Company Gets Approval To Build The World's First Fusion Power Plant

sc5mu93 said:
Sam Altman said AI would cure cancer. Why can't they just use AI to solve this and fire all the slow ass physists? It's like the physists didn't even WANT to solve fusion they are so slow.
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You think youre gonna get free energy lmao

Youre living in fantasy land within fantasy land within wonderland 3 layers deep. Fusion will cost as much if not more than coal and uranium.
 
tangoseal said:
You think youre gonna get free energy lmao

Youre living in fantasy land within fantasy land within wonderland 3 layers deep. Fusion will cost as much if not more than coal and uranium.
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Nuclear is actually pretty cheap; it’s the regulation that makes it incredibly expensive.

In most of the world, you need to have the whole plant funded to completion, including all cost overruns, and the costs for the expected lifetime of the plant's waste disposal held in escrow before you are allowed to break ground on construction. And if the construction costs exceed what’s held, the construction is halted, and the review process starts again.

Getting the construction money upfront is one thing, but operational costs are another, especially with how rampant inflation is.

If Fusion is permitted to ditch half that regulatory overhead, getting them installed will be much easier than traditional nuclear Fission options. Even if they aren’t “cheaper” over their lifetime.
 
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Why would the goobermint want to use nuclear when you can still make money of Nat Gas.
 
Lakados said:
Nuclear is actually pretty cheap, it’s the regulation that makes it incredibly expensive.

In most of the world you need to have the whole plant funded to completion including all cost overruns and the costs for the expected lifetime of the plants waste disposal held in escrow before you are allowed to even break ground on construction. And if the construction costs exceed what’s held the construction is halted and the review process starts again.

Getting the construction money upfront is one thing, but operational costs is another, especially with how rampant inflation is.

If Fusion is permitted to ditch half that regulatory overhead getting them installed will be much easier than traditional nuclear Fission options. Even if they aren’t “cheaper” over their lifetime.
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I have been in the nuclear industry for over 20 years, 16 in a nuclear plant. This is absolutely true. So much so that the industry is very much aware of cost overruns and actively trying to fix that. Weather they do or not is another story.

Generally the first one is way over budget and after that they get it sorted out. Sames goes for a lot of things. Up here in Canada we are doing a lot of refurbishment. Our plants are generally built 4 units at a time which is kinda unusual. Usually the first unit is a shitshow and after that it looks really good.
 
Lakados said:
Nuclear is actually pretty cheap; it’s the regulation that makes it incredibly expensive.

In most of the world, you need to have the whole plant funded to completion, including all cost overruns, and the costs for the expected lifetime of the plant's waste disposal held in escrow before you are allowed to break ground on construction. And if the construction costs exceed what’s held, the construction is halted, and the review process starts again.

Getting the construction money upfront is one thing, but operational costs are another, especially with how rampant inflation is.

If Fusion is permitted to ditch half that regulatory overhead, getting them installed will be much easier than traditional nuclear Fission options. Even if they aren’t “cheaper” over their lifetime.
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Sounds about right (though I don't have the industry experience to back that assessment up) though I imagine it is done to avoid the situation where an operator fails, goes belly up, and then leaves a radioactive toxic mess for someone else to deal with.

I almost wish we had similar requirements for other heavy industry, like - for instance - mining operations, where the original operation is often long gone, but the toxic waste pits remain for decades...

Fusion ought to be much easier from this standpoint, as the waste is a hell of a lot less toxic. Essentially some very lightly radioactive isotopes of helium with relatively short half-lives so they kind of take care of themselves...

Less potential cleanup cost, less need for heavy regulation on cleanup funding.
 
mullet said:
Why would the goobermint want to use nuclear when you can still make money of Nat Gas.
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If the government cared about it's people then nuclear would reduce costs. Also you could enrich uranium just like Iran to build nuclear weapons, if you still need nukes for some reason. I'm still on team solar and wind, since these technologies will give greater return, plus the opportunity for people to be energy independent. Nuclear and fusion still needs a facility with people to run it.
 
The governments never care, I am with you on solar for residential/commercial use, just not 5000 acre farms.

We are 10+ years out from any nuclear reactors, if they started yesterday.
 
mullet said:
The governments never care, I am with you on solar for residential/commercial use, just not 5000 acre farms.
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As opposed to using that land to make ethanol for cars?

We are 10+ years out from any nuclear reactors, if they started yesterday.
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We can start with solar and wind now and then when nuclear is built, then also add that.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Sounds about right (though I don't have the industry experience to back that assessment up) though I imagine it is done to avoid the situation where an operator fails, goes belly up, and then leaves a radioactive toxic mess for someone else to deal with.

I almost wish we had similar requirements for other heavy industry, like - for instance - mining operations, where the original operation is often long gone, but the toxic waste pits remain for decades...

Fusion ought to be much easier from this standpoint, as the waste is a hell of a lot less toxic. Essentially some very lightly radioactive isotopes of helium with relatively short half-lives so they kind of take care of themselves...

Less potential cleanup cost, less need for heavy regulation on cleanup funding.
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You're not too far off. The idea is that the radiation in the fuel is some of the deadliest stuff on the planet. So if you're going to use it, we better make sure everything is done right.

There are a lot of considerations! Every country is a little different and this comes from up north.

All scenarios that could lead to a significant nuclear accident are considered and weighed with probability. Loss of electricity, earthquake, terrorist attack, loss of coolant, loss of reactor control, and so on. Defenses are part of the design. Generators for loss for grid, seismic systems for an earthquake, and so on. the land is selected and must be deemed suitable. The design must be reviewed and deemed safe. Even with the previous mentioned defenses, we in fact have a fleet of portable backup diesel generators and pumps for the unforseen, lessons from Fukushima.

Next the public is consulted. A license must be grated. And then maybe we can just begin to build. Actual construction is only a few years, this process can stretch it out to 10.

Next we need a license to run the plant, licensed staff to operate the control panel, etc.

It's pretty complex.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Sounds about right (though I don't have the industry experience to back that assessment up) though I imagine it is done to avoid the situation where an operator fails, goes belly up, and then leaves a radioactive toxic mess for someone else to deal with.

I almost wish we had similar requirements for other heavy industry, like - for instance - mining operations, where the original operation is often long gone, but the toxic waste pits remain for decades...

Fusion ought to be much easier from this standpoint, as the waste is a hell of a lot less toxic. Essentially some very lightly radioactive isotopes of helium with relatively short half-lives so they kind of take care of themselves...

Less potential cleanup cost, less need for heavy regulation on cleanup funding.
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That’s exactly why it is, Canada has a similar requirement now for Mines (which is why it’s so hard to open them here) as the lands are littered with abandoned mines that will take generations to clean.

We learned it the hard way with the Great Mine Remediation Project. Defunct US gold mine that left 240,000 tones of Arsenic Trioxide behind, it’s going to take upwards of 100 years and untold Billions to clean it up.

But yeah, fear of the operators bailing out leaving the public on the hook for cleanup and remediation is why they do it and with good reasons.

It just makes it hard to do the right thing.
 
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Lakados said:
That’s exactly why it is, Canada has a similar requirement now for Mines (which is why it’s so hard to open them here) as the lands are littered with abandoned mines that will take generations to clean.

We learned it the hard way with the Great Mine Remediation Project. Defunct US gold mine that left 240,000 tones of Arsenic Trioxide behind, it’s going to take upwards of 100 years and untold Billions to clean it up.

But yeah, fear of the operators bailing out leaving the public on the hook for cleanup and remediation is why they do it and with good reasons.

It just makes it hard to do the right thing.
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This is the thing. Sometimes reactions to nuclear, mines, coal plants, or oil are just NIMBY stuff going on but a lot of it is based on real incidents of corporations abusing the crap out of the world and leaving the mess for the general public to bear the brunt of. Corporations have a very long history of poisoning everything in sight to save a dollar and the people in the surrounding region should not be left to shoulder the burden. The locals ends up with health problems that can't be "fixed" with a cash settlement. You can't fix a death with money but in a lot of cases you can prevent it.
 
Lakados said:
That’s exactly why it is, Canada has a similar requirement now for Mines (which is why it’s so hard to open them here) as the lands are littered with abandoned mines that will take generations to clean.

We learned it the hard way with the Great Mine Remediation Project. Defunct US gold mine that left 240,000 tones of Arsenic Trioxide behind, it’s going to take upwards of 100 years and untold Billions to clean it up.

But yeah, fear of the operators bailing out leaving the public on the hook for cleanup and remediation is why they do it and with good reasons.

It just makes it hard to do the right thing.
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Same issue here with abandoned oil wells. The operators just walk away and leave the mess behind for the landowners to live with.
 
The Helion one is one of the compact/small ones

https://x.com/skdh/status/2101908527707025448

1789974193210.png


https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-tackle-economic-realities-fusion-power-0810

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10894-026-00577-9
 
DukenukemX said:
Did they get it working? No of course not.
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What?

The company talked about in OP has working examples/prototypes - that's how they got the job/contracts to build fusion plants for Microsoft, Nucon Corp etc - but again if you read those aren't coming online until 2028 for Microsoft first

Why would you think a fusion plant would be approved + built + online in 3 months since the OP article was posted about approval?
 
kram182 said:
What?

The company talked about in OP has working examples/prototypes - that's how they got the job/contracts to build fusion plants for Microsoft, Nucon Corp etc - but again if you read those aren't coming online until 2028 for Microsoft first

Why would you think a fusion plant would be approved + built + online in 3 months since the OP article was posted about approval?
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So how much power did it output vs input?
 
DukenukemX said:
Did they get it working? No of course not.
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Depend what you mean by working (int has a 2028 as planned build timeline, late 2029 to provide power to microsoft), will it provide current to the grid from fusion vs will be output more power during its lifetime than it did input wise, 2 very different bar.

That the first prototype would still be useful even if it does not yet achieve positive metric... also it is impossible to be sure it work before making it... they will have to see after iteration if they can achieve it.
 
kram182 said:
The Helion one is one of the compact/small ones

https://x.com/skdh/status/2101908527707025448

View attachment 827047

https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-researchers-tackle-economic-realities-fusion-power-0810

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10894-026-00577-9
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MIT confirms that their own SPARC design (as spun off to Commonwealth Fusion) is the most likely to make financial sense.

shocking. :D


I don't necessarily think they are wrong, but it wouldn't exactly be difficult to find a less biased source to take on this analysis.
 
DukenukemX said:
So how much power did it output vs input?
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They don't release efficiency numbers as considered IP/company secrets. Laws of Scaling dictates it takes a full size reactor to achieve net positive, the test ones/prototypes were physical proofs of the functions/processes, you physically can't achieve net positive at that small a scale. This is their release on how their systems will create net output:

https://www.helionenergy.com/blog/how-to-make-fusion-electricity-without-ignition

https://www.helionenergy.com/blog/m...production-from-fusion-electrical-diagnostics


They're not going for sustained fusion, they're going for momentary bursts of fusion, recapture 95% of that (injected energy) via magnets/capacitors etc (what the prototypes showed) and that + extra power fusion gives off (at scale) gets you positive even after loss of injected energy used to get to fusion etc
 
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DukenukemX said:
So how much power did it output vs input?
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Commonwealth Fusion has patents on a new generation of high temperature super-conducting magnets that can produce much stronger magnetic fields in a much smaller footprint, allowing Tokamak reactors to be much smaller than in the past, and thus saving power for containment, allowing (they hope) Q > 1 power generation.

I don't think we will know just how large of a margin it will get until they are done building their 1/4 scale demonstration reactor that they have been building at the former Fort Devens in Central Mass and they actually run it. They started construction in June 2021, and are reportedly some 80% done. They are apparently at the point where the magnets, vacuum vessel and support systems are being installed.

The public schedule is very high level, but they do claim they will be up and running with this initial scale reactor in 2027, so I guess we won't have to wonder whether or not it will work as intended for much longer.

It is notable that they have a full scale commercial site (they are calling ARC) under regulatory and planning stages in Chesterfield County, VA so that it is on deck after the demonstrator is complete, so they are all in on this and have convinced some real money to back them.

Commonwealth Fusions SPARC Tokamak design is probably one of the more conservative designs as it mirrors large scale nuclear heat cycle / gas turbine designs (reaction -> heat -> boil something -> gas gets pushed through turbine generating power), but that also makes it slower to construct and more expensive, as that requires lots of associated infrastructure.

The really cool one is Helion Energy. They are a higher risk option from a technical perspective than Commonwealth Fusion due to their novel direct energy design (magnetic fields from pulsed fusion reactions are used directly across coils to generate power, no heat/gas turbine necessary). If they can pull it off though, their reactors will essentially fit in shipping containers, and be relatively quick to build compared to a plant-sized installation like Commonwealth Fusion.

It will be cool to see if they can pull it off. They have high confidence though, as they have already entered into power delivery contracts with Microsoft starting in 2028 if memory serves, and there may also be others. At least Microsoft thinks that they are worth gambling a lot of money on, so that says something, but based on how new and novel the tech is it does seem like the riskier option compared to the more tried and true heat+gas turbine approach.

If Helion is successful, I can see that absolutely tanking Commonwealth Fusion, as suddenly fusion power becomes much smaller and much more affordable, than Commonwealth's plant scale effort. Commonwealth Fusion on the other hand seems more likely to succeed, given the more traditional approach.

I have nowhere near enough familiarity with either of them to place bets on how likely they are to succeed, but the new thing here is that after decades of Fusion power just being something research labs did, we are now seeing investors dump money into these efforts hoping for significant returns.

Last I heard CFS had raised something like $4 billion from institutional investors, and Helion about $1.5 billion. I have to assume they know something positive I do not. They probably wouldn't just light their money on fire. That's a little bit beyond a "hey, lets get a tax write-off" level of investment.

The next couple of years will be really exciting from a power generation perspective.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Commonwealth Fusion has patents on a new generation of high temperature super-conducting magnets that can [produce much stronger magnetic fields in a much smaller footprint, allowing Tokamak reactors to be much smaller than in the past, and thus saving power for containment, allowing (they hope) Q > 1 power generation.

I don't think we will know just how large of a margin it will get until they are done building their 1/4 scale reactor that they have been building at the former Fort Devens and they actually run it. They started construction in June 2021, and are reportedly some 80% done. They are apparently at the point where the magnets, vacuum vessel and support systems are being installed.

he public schedule is very high level, but they do claim they will be up and running with this initial scale reactor in 2027, so I guess we won't have to wonder whether or not it will work as intended for much longer.

Commonwealth Fusions SPARC Tokamak design is probably one of the more conservative designs as it mirrors large scale nuclear gas turbine designs, but that also makes it slower to construct and more expensive, as that requires lots of associated infrastructure.

The really cool one is Helion Energy. They are a higher risk option from a technical perspective than Commonwealth Fusion due to their novel direct energy design (magnetic fields from the fusion reaction are used directly to generate power, no heat/gas turbine necessary). If they can pull it off though, their reactors will essentially fit in shipping containers, and be relatively quick to build compared to a plant-sized installation like Commonwealth Fusion.

It will be cool to see if they can pull it off. They have high confidence though, as they have already entered into power delivery contracts with Microsoft. At least Microsoft thinks that they are worth gambling a lot of money on, so that says something, but based on how new and novel the tech is it does seem like the riskier option compared to the more tried and true heat+gas turbine approach.

If Helion is successful, I can see that absolutely tanking Commonwealth Fusion, as suddenly fusion power becomes much smaller and much more affordable, than their plant scale effort. Commonwealth Fusion on the other hand seems more likely to succeed, given the more traditional approach.

I have nowhere near enough familiarity with either of them to place bets on how likely they are to succeed, but the new thing here is that after decades of Fusion power just being something research labs did, we are now seeing investors dump money into these efforts hoping for significant returns, and I have to assume they know something positive I do not. They probably wouldn't just light their money on fire.

The next couple of years will be really exciting from a power generation perspective.
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Helion also has a contract to deliver for Nucor Steel besides Microsoft
 
kram182 said:
They don't release efficiency numbers as considered IP/company secrets.
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You're telling me they won't tell anyone how much net energy they produced in fear that someone might steal their IP secrets? What in the?
 
DukenukemX said:
You're telling me they won't tell anyone how much net energy they produced in fear that someone might steal their IP secrets? What in the?
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They're actively building an at scale 'should work no matter what' one for Microsoft as we speak - proof will be in the pudding pass or fail
 
DukenukemX said:
You're telling me they won't tell anyone how much net energy they produced in fear that someone might steal their IP secrets? What in the?
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You can do a lot of work in chemistry if you know the amount of energy you are working with.
 
How legit is that Hoff..whatever... woman's knowledge. I've seen a number of videos of her pop up and a they tend to be negative in nature against the subject, and just wondering if that's her angle to get views as it seems conflict and negativity is a big draw, or does she know what she's talking about? And I don't mean whatever degree she may hold, I have a degree in physics but once you go past basic physics my expertise narrows to a pinpoint of a subject. I.e. I under how fusion works, and while I may see potential problems with doing it as generation, I'm hardly an expert in the field that could make a video on why it would never work.
 
sfsuphysics said:
and just wondering if that's her angle to get views as it seems conflict and negativity is a big draw, or does she know what she's talking about?
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I would say both. She has the qualifications (doctorate in theoretical physics, worked in various research institutes afterwards), but is often hypercritical of various fields of science. See professor dave's video on her to see the criticism of her videos. I can definitely see the anti-science crowd getting drawn to her more negative videos.
 
sfsuphysics said:
How legit is that Hoff..whatever... woman's knowledge. I've seen a number of videos of her pop up and a they tend to be negative in nature against the subject, and just wondering if that's her angle to get views as it seems conflict and negativity is a big draw, or does she know what she's talking about? And I don't mean whatever degree she may hold, I have a degree in physics but once you go past basic physics my expertise narrows to a pinpoint of a subject. I.e. I under how fusion works, and while I may see potential problems with doing it as generation, I'm hardly an expert in the field that could make a video on why it would never work.
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She's kinda like the female German version of Eric Weinstein (even though he's a mathematician), 'the rogue outsider' - her field was in quantum gravity and modifying GR

(Edit: and like Weinstein I mean they're both critical of current lock-in/group-think with ways/methods/thinking/institutes/etc - which is funny from someone who studied quantum gravity - though maybe that's what led her on her path)
 
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sfsuphysics said:
How legit is that Hoff..whatever... woman's knowledge.
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Probably as qualified as Neil deGrasse Tyson. Which means she knows more than any of us.
I've seen a number of videos of her pop up and a they tend to be negative in nature against the subject, and just wondering if that's her angle to get views as it seems conflict and negativity is a big draw, or does she know what she's talking about?
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She knows her stuff but she obviously does this to get views.
And I don't mean whatever degree she may hold, I have a degree in physics but once you go past basic physics my expertise narrows to a pinpoint of a subject. I.e. I under how fusion works, and while I may see potential problems with doing it as generation, I'm hardly an expert in the field that could make a video on why it would never work.
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She's German so that means she knows her stuff. People forget that Germany was the world leader in physics and social sciences until... ya know. Honestly, she's just a confirmation bias.
 
DukenukemX said:
Probably as qualified as Neil deGrasse Tyson. Which means she knows more than any of us.

She knows her stuff but she obviously does this to get views.

She's German so that means she knows her stuff. People forget that Germany was the world leader in physics and social sciences until... ya know. Honestly, she's just a confirmation bis.
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No one who speaks German could be evil.
 
DukenukemX said:
Probably as qualified as Neil deGrasse Tyson. Which means she knows more than any of us.
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Umm... no... well okay, maybe most of you LoL...

You get a PhD you are the world expert, at least at that moment, of exactly one thing, not a whole subject, not all of physics, one tiny sliver
 
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