Commonwealth Fusion Systems is making a multi-billion dollar investment into the first fusion reactor capable of being plugged directly into the electric grid.
It's being called the ARC – an acronym for "Affordable, Robust, Compact" – an ironic play on the name of the small fusion "ARC reactor" worn by Marvel Comics' Tony Stark to power his "Iron Man" suit.
A 100-acre site in Chesterfield County, Va., was chosen to house the reactor.
“This will mark the first time fusion power will be made available in the world at grid scale,” said CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called it “an historic moment for Virginia and the world at large.”
The ARC reactor will be a small demonstration project. Once plugged into the grid, it will be able to produce about 400 megawatts, which is enough to power around 150,000 homes. It is expected to come online sometime in the mid-2030s
Nuclear fusion reactors promise limitless energy with no toxic radioactive waste. That means no disposal problems and no danger of meltdowns or leaks. It works by fusing atomic nuclei, which release incredible amounts of energy. The process uses hydrogen isotopes and produces helium as a harmless byproduct. If the fusion reaction is interrupted, the reactor shuts down in milliseconds.
The hydrogen is fused by superheating it to 100 million degrees Celsius and containing the plasma using powerful magnets. It's a design created by CFS in collaboration with a Korean company. Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) created a 48-second burn in February 2024. While that may not sound like much, it beats the previous efforts of less than 5 seconds of burn achieved a decade ago.
A "tokamak" is a type of magnetic fusion device that uses powerful superconducting magnets to contain plasma at extremely high temperatures. The South Korean tokamak is "specifically designed to study aspects of magnetic fusion energy with a focus on developing a steady-state capable superconducting tokamak." It will act as a research platform for other fusion reactors going forward.
There's no guarantee that this process will yield the results that would make fusion a viable commercial alternative to fission reactors or fossil fuels. Indeed, the path to developing a commercially viable fusion factor is likely to be long and winding.
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But taking it from research projects in labs around the world to commercial use has proved fiendishly difficult. A common joke in the industry is that, for decades, fusion has been just decades away.
It’s something CFS acknowledges. “Nothing occurs overnight in fusion,” Mumgaard said. But the startup, which was spun out of MIT in 2018 and has raised more than $2 billion so far, says it is moving at pace.
It is “deep into” building a tokamak able to demonstrate net fusion energy: meaning a reaction that produces more energy than it consumes. It hopes to produce its first plasma – the superheated cloud of charged gas in which fusion reactions happen – in 2026 and achieve net fusion energy shortly afterward.
As Joe Biden sought to shut down coal-fired power plants and starve oil and gas power plants, the 21st-century economy that runs on huge data centers that feed artificial intelligence desperately needs power. Microsoft is looking into tapping its own nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island.
"By 2034, global energy consumption by data centers is expected to top 1,580 TWh, about as much as is used by all of India," reports Bloomberg. Fusion won't be ready by then, but perhaps by mid-century, fusion will be plugged into the U.S. energy grid and supply us with all the energy we need.
