The future of clean energy could get its start in Virginia. Beginning in the early 2030s, the state will be the site of the world’s first commercial-grade nuclear fusion plant—a project that, if successful, will generate enough clean energy to power 150,000 homes.
ARC settles on Virginia. The startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems, or CFS, is the force behind the nuclear fusion plant. CFS carried out a global search to find the perfect place for ARC, which it says is the world’s first grid-scale nuclear power plant. It evaluated more than 100 locations before settling on Virginia, with factors such as its growing economy, skilled labor force, and clean energy focus pushing it to the top.
CFS will be collaborating with Dominion Energy, a utility company based in Virginia, on the nuclear plant. Dominion Energy will provide development and technical expertise for the plant as well as the leasing rights for its planned location at the James River Industrial Park, an area south of Richmond. However, CFS will independently finance, build, own, and operate the plant.
“This is a historic moment. In the early 2030s, all eyes will be on the Richmond region and more specifically Chesterfield County, Virginia, as the birthplace of commercial fusion energy,” Bob Mumgaard, CFS CEO and co-founder, said in a statement.
The multi-billion ARC project is expected to contribute to economic development in the region and create hundreds of jobs in the long-term operation of the plant.
A new type of nuclear power plant. But wait, don’t we already have nuclear power plants? We do, but all of them use nuclear fission, not nuclear fusion.
Explained simply, in nuclear fission, atoms are split apart; meanwhile, in nuclear fusion, atoms are combined or fused together. The process in both cases releases energy in the form of heat. Fission nuclear plants use this heat to produce steam that spins a turbine to create electricity. Importantly, unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion doesn’t produce radioactive waste or harmful emissions.
The new plant in Virginia puts the spotlight on the decades-old scientific effort to scale nuclear fusion, the same process that provides energy to the Sun and stars, to commercial-grade power plants. While scientists in many countries have managed to create nuclear fusion reactors, no one has managed to sustain them long enough to turn them into a viable energy option for the public.
A company that began in a classroom. CFS originally began in a classroom at MIT. In 2012, Dennis Whyte, a CFS co-founder and MIT professor, was teaching a class called “Principles of Fusion Engineering.” As an assignment, he asked a group of graduate students to design a fusion device that integrated a new type of superconducting magnet. The idea was that the magnet would help confine the plasma used in a nuclear fusion reaction.
In the end, the students’ efforts produced a paper that proposed a new design for a compact tokamak fusion reactor and led to the founding of CFS in 2017. To date, the startup has raised more than $2 billion in funding.
All eyes on SPARC. There’s still a long way to go before ARC becomes a reality in Virginia. In fact, CFS is still seeking permits and expects the construction to be a long process.
Furthermore, the future ARC plant depends on SPARC, CFS’ first fusion demonstration machine. The startup expects SPARC to produce its first plasma in 2026 and net fusion shortly afterwards, according to MIT. If successful, this would be the first time a machine produces more power than it consumes.
“We’re in a ‘hockey stick’ moment in fusion energy, where things are moving incredibly quickly now,” Whyte, the CFS co-founder, said in a statement.
Images | Frédéric Paulussen | Lukáš Lehotský
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