Fusion Fortnightly | 2026-06-23
No fluff, all facts.
General Fusion publishes analysis of plasma compression in LM26. The United States Department of Energy released its finalized Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap. Xcimer preconceptual design approved by DoE.
Companies
General Fusion claims compressional heating of plasmas in LM26. It is great General Fusion is doing this level of analysis on their experiments. If you dig into the paper submitted for peer review, you see that only the electrons were substaintially heated. The ions, which matter for fusion, remained largely unchanged (typically cooling early in the compression only to recover to near the starting temperature at the end). This is consistent with my previous analysis of the progress, or lack thereof, the company has made toward its fusion target over the years. It can densify the plasma through compression but not get the ion heating needed to reach fusion conditions. It also reinforces my hypothesis that underperformance of the ill-named Lawson Machine 26 (they predicted the machine would exceed the Lawson parameter in 2026) caused the present inside investors to not want to continue to invest in the company, forcing it to de-SPAC to get money to continue to operate.
OpenStar publishes its concept paper on Deuterium–tritium levitated dipole fusion power plants. It has a good analysis of the “snowball-in-hell” problem of the levitated dipole magnet. There is still a lot of work to be done experimentally testing the assumptions on the physics basis of levitated-dipole fusion plasmas to make this concept viable.
Astral has raised £23 million to accelerate the development of fusion-produced medical isotopes.
Helion announced that it had received two Washington Department of Health licenses for Orion. The licenses are for Radioactive Materials and Radioactive Air Emissions.
General Fusion was named one of Time’s Top GreenTech Companies of 2026. Although it does not appear to be pay-to-play to get on the list, it is pay-to-use the award announcement. So maybe Time ranks higher the companies most likely to want the publicity and willing to pay, as it surely could not be for fusion performance, strong finances, or actual environmental impact just yet.
CFS announces investment by Abu Dhabi-based Plynth Energy. Plynth is a fusion-focused fund. This investment announcement came nearly a year after CFS announced its Series B2. Axios claims it was nine figures.
Focused Energy plans to spin off SourceLight. This is to make a clean separation between Focused Energy’s fusion-energy focus and the other technologies that have been in development at the company, including SourceLight’s laser-driven radiation sources for materials inspection.
Tokamak Energy and Furukawa Electric are collaborating on UK high-temperature-superconducting (HTS) tape capability. The effort has letters of support from the UK government and UK Industrial Fusion Solutions. Furukawa, through its U.S. subsidiary SuperPower, has been working on HTS. While it has developed good-performance HTS, it has lagged in scaling up commercial production. Given the rise of industry leaders Shanghai Superconductor in China and the kind-of-Russian-associated Faraday Factory in Japan, this collaboration between Tokamak Energy and Furukawa is probably meant to shore up a domestic UK HTS supply.
Avalanche Energy claims that its Jyn device has reached apparent ion temperatures above 1 keV. Avalanche’s own memo indicates that it understands the shortcomings of its measurements. What it has done is measure a broad, rotating Hα charge-exchange spectrum and fit it with “plausible” models. But the width is a mixture of charge-exchange weighting, line-of-sight integration, bulk rotation, cycloidal orbit structure, assumed emissivity, and time averaging over a decaying discharge. Until the analysis resolves all of those issues, the “1.4-1.6 keV apparent ion temperature” claim should be considered “keV-scale fitted velocity variance,” not a measured plasma ion temperature.
SHINE partners with newcleo on nuclear waste reprocessing. newcleo is a European fission company founded in 2021 that is developing lead-cooled fast reactors. As such, it does not yet have spent fuel that needs reprocessing, but it is interested in working with SHINE on doing so, as well as using material that SHINE has reprocessed from others using neutrons from its DT fusion accelerators. In related news, SHINE was one of five companies selected by the DOE to talk about transforming Cold War-era plutonium into nuclear reactor fuel.
First Light Fusion is now using its fusion equipment for orbital impact studies. Its VIPER velocity amplifier can achieve projectile velocities above 12 km/s.
General Fusion filed its SEC Form 424B3. It describes all of the financial details of what the shareholders are voting on for the merger. It also amended the SEC Form 8-K, giving General Fusion SAFE holders the right to vote on the transaction.
TAE and TMTG file SEC Form 8-K. They restate their goal of completing the merger by the end of the year. Interestingly, the spin-off of Truth Social is no longer being pursued.
American Fusion files SEC Schedule 13D. It indicates that the CEO, Richard C. Hawkins, owns 8.59% of the common shares in the company.
Pinnacle Consulting Services files Schedule 13G for American Fusion. Pinnacle Consulting Services, controlled by Robert L. Hymers III, disclosed beneficial ownership of 145.1 million AMFN shares, or 8.99%.
People
Inertia, the fusion company founded by the owner of The Onion, forms a Science and Technology Advisory Board. Marv Adams, former Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, is the chair. The board is rounded out with ICF physicist Brian MacGowan, retired leader of the stealth bomber division at Northrop Grumman Doug Young, former NIF Director Jeff Atherton, ICF diagnostic expert Joe Kilkenny, fusion nuclear-materials professor and card counter Brian Wirth, high-energy-laser and optics expert Jon Zuegel, ICF target expert Larry Suter, laser-plasma physicist Bill Kruer, and the current Guinness World Records holder of the record for highest fusion areal density by grip strength alone, Chuck Norris.
Avalanche Energy appointed Mustally Hussain as chief financial officer. He will oversee finance, capital planning, corporate development, and investor relations as Avalanche scales commercialization of its compact fusion systems. Mustally has a background in banking, moved into finance and strategy at National Grid, led finance in auto lending at Hyundai America and Herc Rentals, and then joined Lucid Motors a few months after it de-SPACed, followed by a short stint at a humanoid-robotics company. The energy-plus-auto background makes sense based on Avalanche’s plans for impossible small-scale mobile fusion platforms. And the post-de-SPAC experience may be useful for the public rumors of Avalanche’s IPO aspirations.
TAE Technologies hired Jeff Woodbury as president and chief operating officer. TAE said the hire expands leadership as it advances commercial development, including construction of its first utility-scale fusion power plant. Jeff had 35 years of service at Exxon Mobil. TAE was able to entice him back to work after eight years of retirement.
Bernard Looney has joined the Type One Energy board of directors. Bernard worked his way up from drilling engineer to CEO at BP.
American Fusion adds Robert V. Duncan as an independent scientific and strategic advisor. This is telling, as Professor Duncan’s first research interest is listed as “Low-Temperature, Condensed Matter Physics,” indicating that American Fusion is not likely to achieve fusion with its present device or plans.
ORNL is hiring directors of the Fusion Engineering and Applied Materials, Fuel Cycle Science and Technology, and Nuclear Science & Engineering divisions.
Government
The United States Department of Energy released its finalized Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap. I started to write my thoughts on this, but it was turning into a rant that I will probably make into its own post. Overall, it is a fairly nice plan. But the second page tells the whole story: “Disclaimer → The activities outlined in the Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap are focused on prioritizing strategic directions for the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy to further collaborate with the U.S. Fusion Industry. This Roadmap does not commit the Department of Energy to specific funding levels. Future funding is subject to Congressional appropriations.” Without funding, it is just another nice plan.
Canada releases a nuclear energy strategy. Naturally, it focuses on being a leader in the fusion fuel cycle due to the extensive tritium production from its CANDU reactors.
Japan plans ¥3.1 trillion ($19 billion) in public-private fusion investment by 2040. Japanese media reported that a draft Takaichi growth strategy would set a ¥3.1 trillion public-private fusion investment target by FY2040, with a 2030s power-generation demonstration goal and a 30% global-market-share ambition. The number is still a draft public-private investment target, not yet an appropriated government budget.
ORNL is collaborating with Singapore on fusion.
China expands IPO support to “future industries,” including fusion. China has a “fifth listing standard” for strategic technology firms that may not yet be profitable to go public. They have now explicitly expanded it to include the future industries in their five-year plans.
The NRC finalized a fee rule aimed at increasing cost certainty and lowering barriers for nuclear energy projects. The rule sets fixed caps on many licensing and service fees and lowers some costs for applicants.
United Kingdom and Japan (UKAEA and QST) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation covering breeding blankets, plasma science, materials, plant systems engineering, robotics, tritium technologies, regulation, standards, skills, affordability, and commercial viability. This creates a mechanism for cooperation between two of the leading government programs in fusion engineering technology.
General Atomics is collaborating with the U.S. DOE and Idaho National Laboratory on a Fusion Blanket Component Test Facility. This is the first step in which they will work to develop design concepts for a facility dedicated to testing full-scale fusion power-plant blankets, potentially using the same facility where GA assembled the ITER central solenoid magnets.
Project WISER, a “wind-tunnel” stellarator project, is launched. WISER, while not a small machine (R = 5 m, B = 1.9 T), is smaller and lower-field than what is projected for commercial-scale stellarators. Centered on the Spanish fusion ecosystem, €500 million is earmarked to support the project through construction.
Other
Financial Times writes a story on the fusion supply chain. There is not much new in there for those in the industry. There will be lots of demand if and when fusion ramps up, but there is still uncertainty about timing and technology specifics.
The folks at 1c Fusion Energy have released their technoeconomic model, including the code. Go play with it, find the holes, and help them improve it.