MIT-affiliated company says it will build ‘world’s first nuclear fusion power plant’

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a start-up that was born out of a project at MIT’s research labs, announced plans this week to break ground on what it calls “the world’s first fusion grid-scale power plant.” The plant, which is expected to be operational sometime in the early 2030s. according to the companywill be built in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

The plan is certainly ambitious, starting with how the energy will be generated. Nuclear fusion is an extremely difficult process that involves the fusion of two light atomic nuclei into one heavier one, resulting in the release of a huge amount of energy – this is it is expected to produce four times as much energy such as nuclear fission reactions. The reaction that generates nuclear fusion is the same reaction that powers the sun.

It’s not hard to imagine why one would want to be able to harness the sun’s energy. You know, it’s actually hard to do that. To date, nuclear fusion has proven elusive—at least in a way that would produce usable energy. In 2022 scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California reached “ignition” of nuclear fusion for the first time, meaning they successfully produced excess energy from the reactions. Before this breakthrough that has as it is replicatedmore energy is needed to produce the reaction than the energy that comes from it.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has not yet achieved the feat of producing excess energy, according to futurism. In fact, the company has not yet completed its construction smaller reactor which is designed to serve as a proof of concept for a larger future plant. This project will continue, but it seems that the startup has decided to start working forward on the assumption that everything will work out, rather than ticking the boxes first.

The company is promising that once this larger reactor enters Virginia, it will produce 400 megawatts of electricity – enough to power about 150,000 homes. That would be great! It also seems a bit ambitious based on the 0 megawatts currently generated by the process.

There is a reason nuclear fusion proved so elusive so far, but perhaps now that the seal has been broken on ignition, development in space will be swift and steady. With a reported $2 billion in funding behind it, Commonwealth Fusion Systems has as good a chance as anyone to figure it out. And if he can’t, maybe he can figure out a way to harness the energy of burning all that money.