Fusion Fortnightly | 2026-04-28
No fluff, all facts.
CFS moves ARC from concept toward permitting and grid interconnection. TAE + TMTG governance shakeup. ITER vacuum vessel regulatory ruling.
Government
President invokes the Defense Production Act on grid infrastructure, equipment, and supply chain capacity. The memo states that “action to expand the domestic capability to develop, manufacture, and deploy grid infrastructure and supporting industrial supply chains is necessary to avert an industrial resource or critical technology item shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability.” He’s not wrong, but is this the right policy tool to get this done? It will be interesting to watch how it plays out.
ITER vacuum vessel ruled by regulators not to be governed by the same regulations as a fission pressure vessel. This highlights one of the risks of going the route France took with ITER and regulating fusion under a fission framework: there are more differences than similarities and it is too easy to apply the fission rules wrongly to fusion. From an engineering standpoint, the ITER vacuum vessel is indeed a pressure vessel. But as the article states, the electromagnetic loads from disruptions are more often than not the ones that dominate the engineering design. Put simply, if it can handle the electromagnetic loads, it can handle the external atmospheric pressure loads. This change is simply recognizing that fact and applying the appropriate safety, testing, and related criteria to the vacuum vessel.
EUROfusion mapped the key physics gaps still blocking a stellarator reactor. The report lays them out in clear detail (clear, at least for plasma physicists). There is nothing surprising here, as these things have been studied for decades. The degree to which each one of these needs to be “solved” before building a stellarator power plant depends on the risk tolerance of the team and funders.
UKAEA published a guide for suppliers engaging with fusion. For those not familiar with fusion energy, this is a very good resource.
Europe’s fourth Vacuum Vessel sector is ready for ITER. The teams re-machined field joints (past sectors arrived on-site with non-conformities and didn’t line up) and welded 200 diagnostic-support bosses before shipment, moving work upstream to streamline on-site assembly.
Companies
First commercial fusion plant nears construction in US, Commonwealth CEO says. The key new information in here is that CFS is in the process of permitting the plant “so that as soon as capital is available, we can actually go build that project [ARC].” In related news, CFS has a press release on the first ARC. It includes an announcement of the submission for an interconnection request as well as a formal name for the site: “Fall Line Fusion Power Station”.
General Fusion filed an amended SEC Form F-4/A. It now includes a legal opinion that the new General Fusion shares, warrants, etc. are valid.
General Fusion also filed an SEC Form 8-K. From it, it appears that Wendy Kei has replaced Grant Gardiner on the Board of Directors. One in, one out.
TAE Technologies has filed an SEC Form 8-K. It says that Devin Nunes is completely out as CEO, gets severance pay through September, and some accelerated stock vesting. Kevin J. McGurn has been appointed interim CEO and will receive $125,000 per month plus 146,198 restricted stock units! As mentioned two Fusion Fortnightly issues ago, Kevin has been CEO of a couple of SPACs, including the one Truth Social may merge into. Meredith O’Rourke, a Republican political fundraiser and National Finance Director for Trump 2024, and Boris Epshteyn, the personal senior counsel to President Donald Trump, were announced to be joining the Board.
First Light Fusion disclosed new funding with a £25 million first close. I was surprised to read that they are still going after their fusion energy device concept FLARE.
The only presently publicly traded “fusion energy” company, American Fusion Inc., announced that it resolved its shareholder issue. 1.683 billion common shares were canceled and returned to treasury pursuant to a final court order.
Media
TechCrunch reports on Cracks are starting to form on fusion energy’s funding boom. As with most reporting, the headline doesn’t necessarily reflect the story. The cracks forming are in underperforming companies, not the funding boom. These cracks are due both to companies not delivering and to the success of other companies.
Journal Club
The paper Insufficient energy gain of pure proton–boron fuel for IFE: 1D radiation–hydrodynamic simulations was published in Physics of Plasmas. Through detailed simulations, the authors “demonstrated that self-sustained burn wave propagation in p+B11 is achievable, but the conditions required make it impractical for energy production.” It is remarkable that this work was published by the fusion company HB11, and good on them for doing so. Perhaps they’ll need to change their name.
The first of the ARC physics basis papers, ARC physics basis–magnetohydrodynamics, was published in the Journal of Plasma Physics. In it, the authors explore the requirements for things like vertical stability and error-field correction. As can be seen from the author list, CFS worked with a big team at Columbia University with support from MIT on this. I’m looking forward to the other papers!
New photos of the BEST site in China. It answers the question: What would a Frank Gehry-designed fusion building look like?