Dive Brief:
- Type One Energy CEO Chris Mowry said in a BNEF Summit New York panel discussion Wednesday that electrons produced by nuclear fusion will hit the U.S. grid before the first “Type 4” advanced fission reactor comes online. The other panelist, Commonwealth Fusion Systems CEO Rick Needham, echoed Mowry’s prediction and called nuclear fusion “the ultimate power source.” Also known as Generation IV reactors, Type 4 reactors include non-water-cooled technologies such as molten salt and sodium-cooled fast reactors.
- The conversation came the day before Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced a bill to support the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s dedicated regulatory framework for nuclear fusion development.
- In a discussion led by Chris Gadomski, lead nuclear analyst for BloombergNEF, Needham and Mowry discussed the long-term potential for nuclear fusion power generation, their companies’ core technologies and their respective pathways to commercialization.
Dive Insight:
Fusion reactors produce power by fusing light atoms, typically the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, at tremendously high temperatures and pressures. The reaction can produce about four times as much energy as nuclear fission, which splits much heavier atoms, and four million times as much energy as burning coal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Fusion’s potential advantages over fission include near-limitless fuel from naturally abundant sources like seawater, little radioactive waste and “no risk of a runaway reaction and meltdown,” the IAEA says. Like fission, fusion emits no carbon.
Fusion has long been seen as a possible solution to finite fossil fuel supplies, and more recently to climate change and load growth from AI and other power-hungry technologies, but progress toward commercialization has proven elusive. Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved “net energy” — a fusion reaction that produces more energy than it consumes — in December 2022, after decades of failed attempts.
LLNL’s breakthrough came amid rising commercial interest in fusion, with more than 40 fusion startups and $6 billion in private capital invested, as of late 2023, according to the Fusion Industry Association.
Type One Energy and Commonwealth Fusion Systems both received multimillion-dollar commitments last year from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. Six other fusion companies were included in the award, which could provide funding until 2028, depending on Congressional appropriations.
By then, Commonwealth Fusion Systems expects to have “first plasma,” or an initial fusion reaction, at a demonstration facility it’s building near Boston, Needham said. He said that could happen as early as 2026, with net energy to follow soon after. Commonwealth could deploy its first 400-MW commercial plant in the “early 2030s,” he said.
“This is coming sooner than you think,” Needham said.
Commonwealth is also pursuing a “horizontal play” to supply superconducting magnets to other fusion companies as well as non-fusion industries like offshore wind and maglev rail, Needham said.
The Commonwealth reactor, which Needham called “the least scientifically risky” design, is a donut-shaped tokamak supported by a proprietary superconducting magnet. Type One’s reactor is a stellarator, a twisted loop that Mowry said represents a “direct shot on goal” rather than “another large science machine.”
“We have absolute conviction that a stellarator is the way to go,” Mowry said.
While Needham expressed confidence in Commonwealth’s compact high-field tokamak design, he admitted “we are not married to the tokamak as the ultimate winner.”
“Other [fusion] architectures could be really interesting, but fusion will trump fission and the only thing that beats a fusion power plant is a better fusion plant,” he said.
Type One said in a February news release that it could begin construction next year on its Infinity One pilot plant at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run Fossil Plant in Clinton, Tennessee, which was retired in 2023.
Mowry did not confirm that timeline on Wednesday. He said only that the company is verifying its power plant design and “focused on business metrics … rather than spending money on bricks and mortar.” But he did note the symbolism of replacing a coal-fired power plant with a nuclear reactor.
