How southern Wisconsin could become a nuclear fusion mecca (2024)

In a single month this summer, three milestone events underscored why Wisconsin scientists are so excited about the future of nuclear fusion as a viable source of clean energy.

On July 15, at a lab in Stoughton, one group of scientists reported generating a beam of superheated plasma for the first time, moving them closer to developing an efficient method of nuclear fusion.

A week later, another group of scientists in Janesville touted their particle accelerator producing 50 trillion nuclear fusion neutrons per second, making the device among the world’s most powerful of its kind.

Then, on the last day of July, a Tennessee-based company announced it had raised over $82 million in seed funding for a fusion prototype based on the work of scientists at its Madison office.

In Stoughton, Janesville and Madison, the federal government and private firms are pouring millions of dollars into the development of nuclear fusion technologies. The funding is partially driven by hopes of establishing a reliable, carbon-free source of energy that could help address climate change.

Among eight firms nationwide, Madison-based Realta Fusion and Tennessee-based Type One Energy are participating in a $46 million federal program that provides incentives for proven fusion advancements by the end of the decade. Type One Energy has four offices in North America, including the one on West Washington Street in downtown Madison.

SHINE Technologies in Janesville has also received $32 million in federal funding for producing medical isotopes, which helps pay for its fusion energy research. The fifth oldest private fusion endeavor in the world, according to a trade association, SHINE is now among the globe’s most funded.

Together, scientists at Realta Fusion, Type One Energy and SHINE make Wisconsin an unusual hub for private fusion research on the international stage. Among 45 private fusion companies worldwide identified in a July industry survey, 25 were headquartered in the United States and three were listed as operating in southern Wisconsin.

In February, Wisconsin lawmakers held a hearing to gather testimony from energy companies working with hydrogen, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Legislators aimed to learn more about the future of clean energy and whether new government policies could be warranted.

Realta Fusion CEO and co-founder Kieran Furlong was invited to speak at the hearing and argued nuclear fusion could become Wisconsin’s next thing — like cheese, beer, cows and the iconic badger.

“What Detroit was for the global automobile industry in the 1950s, what Houston is today in the global oil and gas sector … I can see Wisconsin being the global hub for the fusion industry in the 21st century,” Furlong said.

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Seeking a breakthrough

For decades, scientists have explored nuclear fusion as a potential solution for the nation’s carbon-free energy needs. Unlike other renewable sources, such as solar and wind, fusion requires no battery and can provide constant power.

But efficiently creating energy from fusion has evaded scientists.

Nuclear fusion essentially describes when atomic particles blend together, releasing massive amounts of energy. Fusion is different from fission — the reaction used at nuclear power plants that involves splitting atomic particles. Of the two reactions, fusion produces substantially less radiation.

Researchers learned long ago how to produce nuclear fusion reactions. The same reaction keeps the sun and other stars shining. The challenge now for scientists in Wisconsin and elsewhere is proving a method that can be commercially viable and reproduced at a large scale.

“I think the thing we all agree on … is that an advanced society will make its energy from fusion,” said Greg Piefer, the CEO of SHINE. “We like the term ‘evolutionarily inevitable.’ It’s coming. But I think we disagree on what the fastest, most efficient way to get there is.”

Wisconsin’s presence in the nuclear fusion industry has grown out of research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The university’s Fusion Technology Institute, founded in 1971, claims to produce the most advanced-degree fusion engineers in the nation.

SHINE spun out from the university in 2005. Type One Energy and Realta Fusion followed in 2019 and 2022, respectively.

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Of the three Wisconsin operations, Realta Fusion’s goals for developing a commercially viable fusion system are on the fastest track.

Realta Fusion aims to build a prototype of its approach by 2028. Within a decade, the firm aspires to have a pilot plant up and running in Wisconsin. Type One Energy plans to launch its own pilot in 2033 while SHINE is eying 2040.

Piefer said fusion at a commercial scale is the last goal in a four-phase plan at SHINE. Building value over time, he said, is how the world’s fusion companies can “justify hundreds of billions of dollars in investment over decades.” Of the $7.1 billion invested so far into fusion worldwide, at least $800 million has been invested into SHINE, according to a recent Fusion Industry Association report.

“You can’t just throw trillions of dollars at it and hope things work,” Piefer said. “The right answer is practice … to build over time.”

SHINE’s first step to expand fusion involves examining whether the technology can replace fission in industries like defense and aerospace. The company’s particle accelerator, for example, aims to simulate the effect of a nuclear attack and cosmic radiation on defense-related electronics like satellites.

The company’s second phase — its current focus — involves using byproducts of fusion to create cancer-fighting medical isotopes. The third phase recycles nuclear waste, while the fourth and last phase generates fusion power.

Why Wisconsin?

Piefer and Furlong each talked about the strength of Wisconsin’s research and manufacturing as part of their companies’ decisions to remain in the state.

“There's this huge potential to marry Wisconsin's manufacturing capabilities with its research capabilities and create this new industry, which could just generate a huge economic engine for the state,” Furlong said. “We see a future where you could have a place like Wisconsin building and manufacturing and exporting.”

SHINE planted its feet in Janesville in 2008. Two days before Christmas that year, the nation’s oldest General Motors plant ended production and about 9,000 Janesville jobs vanished in the community.

Janesville’s economic development team at the time wanted to transform the city into a technology and advanced manufacturing hub. SHINE hoped to help fulfill that goal.

“We didn’t find Janesville. Janesville found us,” Piefer said.

The company’s “Chrysalis” facility took over a decade to build. According to SHINE, the facility is designed to provide more than one-third of the global demand for an isotope that can help treat heart disease and cancer.

Piefer described worrying last year, amid a round of layoffs, that the company might shut its doors like the General Motors plant. But he said SHINE’s isotope business can now stand on its own. He is confident the company will achieve a commercially viable system for nuclear fusion-based energy, as well.

“The Chrysalis facility in Janesville ain't going anywhere. It's going to employ people in Janesville for a long time,” Piefer said. “The other thing I hope we achieve with this company ... is to create really significant returns in Wisconsin … help catalyze a whole startup ecosystem, or at least, take the one we have and grow it quite a bit.”

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Wisconsin can do more to establish its foothold in the fusion industry, Furlong said, such as creating regulations, state incentives and jobs training programs now rather than in the next decade. Realta Fusion is working with organizations, such as Stellar Tech Girls and Madison College’s STEM Academy, to get “people excited about the potential for the future,” he said.

Engaging with the community is imperative as residents worry phasing out fossil fuels would also mean phasing out jobs, Furlong said.

“Kids today who are learning about this are the ones who will be building and operating our plants in the 2030s and ’40s,” he said. “I think that’s an area where the state education system and workforce development programs can play a role in terms of managing that expectation, as well as making sure that we’re fitting that pipeline with talented individuals.”

“Wisconsin can’t be too Midwestern here,” Furlong added. “Do a little chest pounding, and say, ‘Listen, this is where fusion is happening.’”

In February, Type One Energy moved its headquarters from Wisconsin to Tennessee, partially to launch a collaboration with a Tennessee electric utility and the U.S. Department of Energy. The partnership is piloting a fusion plant at a retired coal plant. Type One Energy was the first recipient of the Tennessee government’s $50 million Nuclear Energy Fund.

The company plans to continue its relationship with UW-Madison despite moving headquarters to another state, said Darren Gale, a top executive at Type One Energy. Madison is home to its physics research.

“Funds to the university, utilizing people involved in the university, the folks who live and work in Wisconsin that are part of Type One — all of those benefits will continue,” he said.

Part of the energy mix

Overseeing Wisconsin’s Office of Sustainability and Clean Energy, Maria Redman sees nuclear fusion as a possible addition to the state’s energy mix, but the state is exploring other options to meet its needs, too.

The state has funded efforts to grow hydropower, seeking to build a renewable source of continuous energy like nuclear fusion, and to expand its ability to store other renewable sources of energy in batteries.

“We’ve always taken an all-of-the-above approach,” Redman said. “We know fusion is a great opportunity to create a lot of energy efficiently and to ensure that it's clean.”

Like other states, Wisconsin aims to transition its energy consumption to 100% carbon-free energy by 2050. Most of the state’s energy production is currently from natural gas- or coal-fired generation, according to federal regulators.

Nuclear fusion could transition over time to becoming a small slice of the state’s energy production, Redman said. She emphasized that the technology first needs to be “integrated safely, affordably and reliably in the system.”

At Type One Energy, chief science officer John Canik said breakthroughs in batteries for wind and solar energy continue to evade scientists, driving interest in nuclear fusion as a potentially better option for continuous power than other renewable sources.

“We all hope (breakthroughs in batteries) happen … but it hasn't yet,” Canik said. “Given the stakes here, we need to play all of our cards.”

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Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, which advises state lawmakers on policy, said nuclear fusion has so far gained bipartisan support in Wisconsin’s politically divided government.

“For the most part, policymakers, both Republican and Democrat, have been open to the notion that Wisconsin has a foundation for continued work in fusion,” he said.

Still considers himself a former skeptic of nuclear fusion. When SHINE spun out from UW-Madison in 2005, he thought fusion was 50 years away. Now he is more optimistic.

“I continue to think we get closer all the time. We’re probably not talking five decades, but I suspect we’re talking at least a decade,” he said.

Piefer views nuclear fusion as a slow but noble burn. While some companies in the industry are aiming to launch pilots this decade, Piefer said predicting timelines can be difficult. The hotter plasma gets and the more scientists try to control it, the more challenges emerge, he said.

“I hope they’re right,” Piefer said about other companies with sooner pilots. “It would be an awesome tool to have in the battle against climate change.”

Nuclear fusion efforts have drawn some worries in Wisconsin. While many Janesville residents welcomed SHINE in the 2000s, others arrived at community meetings with figurative “pitchforks and torches” over safety concerns, Piefer said.

“People wanted to string us up,” he said with a chuckle.

SHINE assured residents that scientists weren’t creating black holes or conditions that would allow nuclear accidents like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. The company said safeguards are in place to automatically shut down the company’s fusion reactions if needed.

Piefer said a person who lives adjacent to the company’s facilities for their entire life would receive less radiation than from a single X-ray scan for a stomach ache. The building is constructed to be very strong because it houses radioactive medical isotopes, he said.

“Earthquakes can't take it down,” he said.

As Realta Fusion begins searching for a location in Dane County to build its prototype fusion energy system, Furlong said it will be imperative for scientists to be attentive to the needs of communities.

“It’s been too many instances in the past where technologists will just … keep their head down, work hard at the technology that they think is solving some big problem, then come and say, ‘Hey, look at our solution,’” Furlong said. “People won’t want to trust us. We want to avoid that kind of mistake and make sure that we engage in communities, talk about potential benefits of fusion, as we see it, but also listen to what people’s concerns are.”

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to correct the year thatRealtaFusionspun out from UW-Madison.

How southern Wisconsin could become a nuclear fusion mecca (2024)

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