Fusion Fortnightly | 2026-04-14
No fluff, all facts.
U.S. Department of Energy published its FY 2027 budget request to Congress with less money to ITER and more to domestic programs supporting fusion commercialization. Inertia announces large partnership with LLNL. Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Realta Fusion announced a long-term strategic partnership.
Government
The U.S. Department of Energy published its FY 2027 budget request to Congress (the Senate and House will still need to write and reconcile their own bills to pass a budget). While total Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) falls from $805.7 million to $755.3 million, that drop is almost entirely because U.S. ITER falls from $170.7 million to $77.5 million. FES research rises from $635.0 million to $677.8 million, even as the overall Office of Science request shrinks from $8.25 billion to $7.14 billion. DOE is asking to spend less on fusion in total, but more on U.S. domestic capability-building and commercialization. The change from 10+ years ago is unimaginable: from cutting C-Mod and “leveraging international collaborations” (aka teaching China how to do fusion) to now explicitly talking about commercialization. Never thought I’d see the day… Also in the budget is $10M for the new Office of Fusion to coordinate activities advancing fusion. Reading through it was a reminder that the U.S. DOE’s total project cost for ITER, which they claim they will stay within, is $6.5B; at 9.09% of ITER, that puts the total cost for ITER at around $71.5B! But we’ll never know the total due to how it is run.
ARPA-E announces $135M for fusion technology. In my opinion, besides supporting training the workforce, ARPA-E is probably the best money the U.S. government is spending on fusion. Most of these projects are too high risk for venture capital. And the execution risk is on the fundees, not the government, so they can move faster and more efficiently than most government funded research goes these days.
U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing announced a conditional financing commitment linked to SHINE’s domestic molybdenum‑99 medical-isotope production effort. The commitment is conditional on SHINE clearing the usual DOE technical, legal, environmental, and financial closing hurdles. The DOE did the deal because it wants a domestic, non-HEU (i.e., not a weapons proliferation risk), strategically important Mo-99 supply chain onshore as the present U.S. supply is imported.
Wisconsin enacted 2025 Wisconsin Act 165, creating a sales-and-use tax exemption for qualifying “nuclear fusion technology projects”. This uses the broad definition of nuclear fusion as “the purpose of undertaking the controlled fusion of atomic nuclei or research thereupon, including energy generation, propulsion systems, materials research, medical isotope production, neutron sources, plasma physics research, and any other application making use of fusion reactions or fusion-enabling technologies.” This is a state-level industrial policy move intended to reduce project costs and pull fusion development and supply-chain activity into Wisconsin.
UKAEA unveils 2026-2030 fusion roadmap. In it, UKAEA aligns itself with the UK government’s 2026 fusion strategy and its £2.5 billion fusion commitment through 2030. The lab is placing itself in a role to support the development of the fusion industry with: major new facilities such as H3AT and LIBRTI, more investment in MAST-U, decommissioning and repurposing JET, and expanded use of the Sunrise fusion-dedicated supercomputing effort.
UK Fusion Energy Ltd (UKFE) releases its strategy. UKFE is the entity developing STEP, the UK’s government-funded spherical tokamak pilot plant, backed by £1.3 billion through 2029. It is working to build the machinery for a UK fusion industry: system integration, supply chain capacity, digital engineering infrastructure, and the institutional capability to build future plants. UKFE is partnering with ILIOS, Tokamak Energy, and Dassault Systems.
France and Japan issued a joint declaration on nuclear-energy cooperation that includes an explicit commitment to continue cooperation on fusion-energy projects, including ITER and JT‑60SA. In addition to cooperating on many fission-energy-related issues, they confirm they will continue to cooperate on the fusion research they have been cooperating on (JT-60SA, ITER, IFMIF, etc.).
New video tour of SPARC (April 2026). So cool to see it all coming together.
Companies
Inertia, the fusion company founded by The Onion owner Jeff Lawson, announces large partnership with LLNL. It includes cooperative research and IP licensing. Jeff was surprised to find that the bulk of LLNL’s IP is focused on using Chuck Norris’ immense grip strength to confine the raging fusion plasma.
Ridgway Machines appoints Mike Allen as new Managing Director. Tokamak Energy announced in September 2025 that it was acquiring Ridgway Machines to help grow its superconducting magnet business. Ridgeway describes itself as: “leading manufacturer of precision taping and winding machines for the electrical and energy industries.” Mike spent most of his career at Rolls Royce in supply chain and operations roles.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Realta Fusion announced a long-term strategic partnership for the design and manufacturing of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. Commonwealth Fusion Systems will design and manufacture high‑temperature superconducting magnet systems for Realta’s magnetic‑mirror fusion prototypes and future commercial plants. CFS previously worked with what was to become Realta on the 17 T WHAM magnets, a project I started up internal to CFS. So this partnership is a natural next step. Realta is the second company that has partnered with CFS to supply HTS magnets: CFS and Type One Energy announced their agreement just over a year ago.
General Fusion releases an updated SEC F-4. I did not have the time to go through this with a fine-toothed comb, you can see how different classes fare in the Ownership of New General Fusion after Closing and Dilution sections as well as how the PIPE investors do in the PIPE Subscription Agreements section. Never in my PhD studies did I anticipate I would be working my way through fusion company SEC filings.
Xcimer announces Justin Brynestad as their new Senior Vice President, Vulcan. Justin was VP of the New Shepard reusable rocket program at Blue Origin. Vulcan is Xcimer’s NIF+ class facility, integrating their new laser technology up to 12 MJ on fusion targets (NIF is 2 MJ).
Eric Swider resigns from TMTG, the company TAE is planning on merging with. No indication of the reason for the resignation was given. Eric was the CEO of the blank check company that the pre-TMTG company merged with to go public. Perhaps Eric read my article on TAE’s reactor…
TAE Technologies announced the completion of a site evaluation tour, including Alabama, Ohio, and Texas. It’s looking for the standard things: infrastructure readiness, grid connectivity, land access, workforce, and incentives.
Helion released the first round of 2026 awards under its HERCULES program. Helion allocated $4 million of funding across 25 proposals at 20 institutions. Nice to see what is probably one of the more secretive fusion companies embracing the open innovation model. Projects cover what one expects: lots of fusion materials and measurement system R&D. Credit to Texas A&M for the most convoluted acronym of the bunch (CLEOPATRA: Cooling puLsEd cOpPer mAgnets wiTh supeRcritical gAseous fluids).
Avalanche Energy was awarded a $5.2 million contract from DARPA to develop compact alpha‑voltaic technology. It is a 30‑month effort to mature micro‑fabricated cells that convert alpha particle energy directly into electricity. Avalanch says it is based on a liquid metal based technology. This is a relatively big chunk of cash for the Avalanche team. I would be surprised if it would work in most fusion energy systems, but would probably find use in materials that emit alpha by radioactive decay.
Fuse to open Albuquerque facility, following Pacific Fusion to the Land of the Enchantment. Fuse, which is working with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories on research, will have flash X-ray and pulse neutron generators to conduct radiation testing services for national defense, space and electronic components. Why New Mexico, you ask? Well, the state receives royalties from the exploitation of its natural resources (mostly oil) and the State Investment Council is working to transform the revenue from non-renewable resources into a “sustainable financial engine”. Their goal is “to make New Mexico the place to be for the fusion industry.”
Journal Club
Dennis Whyte (CFS co-founder) and his team at Rutherford Energy Ventures release their preprint Criteria for the economic viability of fusion power plants. In it they try to create a concept-agnostic framework for whether a fusion plant is profitable. They define an economic gain metric, \(Q_{\text{econ}}\), by normalizing plant economics to the control surface \(S\) (the first-wall, blanket, or chamber boundary through which fusion energy has to be removed) and compare energy sales against three main costs: consumable targets, replacement of that surface, and plant construction/financing. They are clear that \(Q_{\text{econ}} \ge 1\) is only a necessary condition, not proof of commercial viability. The main finding is that basic viability requires fusion power density \(P_f/S\) of about \(2\,\text{MW/m}^2\), pushing back against the common idea that a plant can compensate for low power density with a cheaper first wall or blanket (Dennis has been arguing this point for many years). They also find that cheap replacement of the power-facing surface matters more than maximizing total plant lifetime.
New paper from FELEX on Non-Proliferation and Export Controls for Fusion Technologies. FELEX is the International Group of Legal Experts on Fusion Energy and was established by Fusion for Energy with support from the International Nuclear Law Association. Their new paper argues that fusion’s proliferation risks are real but narrower than fission’s. So the right near-term response is targeted controls, not importing the full fission safeguards model (it’s remarkable how many people out there think we should just copy-paste fission regulations onto fusion). They express three main concerns: fissile breeding from neutron flux, diversion of tritium or lithium-6, and weapons-relevant knowledge spillovers from some inertial-fusion work. They conclude that we should use the tools of export controls, national licensing, tritium accountancy, Additional Protocol tools, and “non-proliferation by design” in reducing the proliferation risk of fusion energy.
Academic study claims that fusion power is unlikely to become competitive. I’ve long wondered what the learning rate we should expect for fusion is. The paper does a good job of demonstrating that most learning rates for fusion have been unjustified or not supported with data. However, I disagree with the methodology (interviewing fusion “experts” to get their opinions) and the conclusion that fusion power plants will need to have high customization (I agree on moderate to high relative complexity though). While the experts probably understand the base technology, they likely aren’t experienced in what it takes to scale technologies. I think its customization penalty is too strong: the authors themselves note that future fusion plants are expected to scale through multiple standardized units rather than larger bespoke designs. Evidence from nuclear new-build shows that when designs, codes, supply chains, and construction sequences are stabilized across a fleet, standardization and series construction can cut total costs materially, with OECD/NEA citing roughly 25–40% lower total costs for standardized series builds. To me, the right conclusion is not “fusion will be too expensive so public programs shouldn’t support it” but “fusion economics depend on whether developers can actually freeze designs, industrialize key modules, and build fleets instead of one-off megaprojects.”