The MIT-affiliated company says it will build the “world’s first grid-scale” Nuclear Fusion Power Plant

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup spun off from a project at the research labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced plans this week to break ground on what it calls “the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant.” The plant, which is expected to go online in the early 2030s, according to the companyIt will be built in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

The plan is certainly an ambitious one, starting with how to generate energy. Nuclear fusion is a very difficult process involving the fusion of two light atomic nuclei into a heavier nucleus, which releases a large amount of energy. it is estimated to produce four times as much energy such as nuclear fission reactions. The reaction caused by nuclear fusion is the same type of reaction that powers the sun.

It is not difficult to imagine why man would want to use the energy of the sun. You know, it’s actually hard to do. So far, nuclear fusion has proven difficult – at least in a way that produces usable energy. In 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California nuclear fusion has reached its “ignition”. for the first time, meaning they successfully produced excess energy from the reactions. The one before this jump repeated sincemore energy was needed to produce the reaction than the energy coming from it.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems have yet to produce excess energy. According to futurism. In fact, the company has not finished building on it yet smaller reactor intended 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 move forward with the assumption that everything will work out, rather than checking the boxes first.

It is a company encouraging Once commissioned in Virginia, this larger reactor will produce 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 150,000 homes. That would be great! Based on the 0 megawatts currently generated from the process, this also seems somewhat ambitious.

There is a reason nuclear fusion proved to be very difficult so far, but perhaps now that the seal has been broken during ignition, developments in space will come rapidly and steadily. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which already reportedly has $2 billion in funding behind it, has as good a chance as anyone. If he can’t, maybe he can find a way to harvest energy from burning all that cash.