As you read these lines, in a county in Virginia they are digging the foundations of what could be the future of human energy. It is not a solar farm, it is not a wind farm. It is something much more ambitious: the first electric power plant commercial nuclear fusion of the world. Yes, you read that right. We're talking about harnessing the energy of the stars here on Earth, and not in the distant future, but in the next decade.
The news went around the world when Commonwealth Fusion Systems has announced plans to build this power plant in Chesterfield County. But what makes this even more incredible is that this is not a promise for 2080: we're talking about the early 2030s.
Commercial Nuclear Fusion: The Moment We've Been Waiting For
Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, doesn't mince words when describing this historic moment. “By the early 2030s,” he said in the announcement, “all eyes will be on the Richmond region as the birthplace of commercial fusion energy.” This isn't rhetoric: Behind those words are over $2 billion raised from investors such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and George Soros.
But they are not alone in this race against time. Across the ocean, Claudio Descalzi of Eni declared that “the first pilot will be in 2025, and if it works we will have the first commercial product in 2030.” A timeframe that makes one shiver with audacity (and does not convince me at all) considering that we are talking about artificially replicating the process that powers the Sun.
Commonwealth itself is completing construction of SPARC, the demonstration reactor that should produce the first plasma in 2026. If all goes according to plan, SPARC will pave the way for ARC, the first power plant to feed fusion energy into the electrical grid.
Money talks, or rather: it's screaming
When Phil Larochelle of Breakthrough Energy Ventures compares fusion “to a moment in human history comparable to the discovery of fire” is perhaps an exaggeration. Or maybe not. The numbers speak clearly: Private support for fusion technologies surpassed $7,3 billion globally in 2024, with an increase of 1,1 billion compared to the previous year.
To give you an idea of the fever that has hit Silicon Valley and beyond: Commonwealth Fusion Systems alone has raised more funding than any other fusion firm, exceeding 2 billion dollars. Among the investors, as mentioned, you will find a real list of those who count in the world of technology: in addition to the already mentioned Gates, Bezos and Soros, There are Google, Salesforce and Equinor, the Norwegian energy company.
How does commercial nuclear fusion work?
But what exactly are we trying to build? Commercial nuclear fusion is the opposite of the fission we know from current power plants. Instead of breaking apart heavy uranium atoms, we combine very light nuclei (deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen) to form helium. The process releases monstrous energy: that's what the Sun has been doing for 4,6 billion years.
The trick is to make it work in a box on Earth. The technology uses superconducting magnets to confine a plasma at 100 million degrees Celsius in a doughnut-shaped chamber called tokamak. These magnets are the real technological leap: Commonwealth has successfully tested HTS magnets (High Temperature Superconductor) which allow the construction of smaller and more efficient reactors.
And when I say “smaller”, we are still talking about a 400 megawatt power plant, enough to power about 150.000 homes. Not bad for a first attempt at taming a star.
Three challenges that will make your wrists tremble
Of course, all that glitters is not gold. The first obstacle It has a name that sounds harmless but hides a dizzying cost: tritium. This isotope of hydrogen can cost up to $30.000 per gram, making fuel more expensive than gold. The good news is that bombarding lithium with neutrons produces tritium, so future power plants should be self-sufficient.
The second problem it's more down to earth: money. The ITER project, the multinational giant under construction in France, has suffered delays and costs have risen to 25 billion dollars. The first operations with deuterium-tritium are postponed to 2039, nine years after the original predictions.
The third challenge It's purely engineering, but no less complex: create a plasma that produces more energy than is needed to power the reaction. Andrew Christlieb The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that it will take at least 20 years to resolve all the engineering issues.
Italy is not standing by and watching
Our country has decided to play its cards in this global game. DTT is being built at ENEA in Frascati (Divertor Tokamak Test facility), a half-billion euro investment twenty kilometers from the Colosseum. Not bad as an address for the future of energy.
But he made the most daring move Eni, that became majority shareholder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, placing Italy at the center of the race for commercial fusion. And it doesn't end there: The UK Atomic Energy Authority has announced a partnership with Eni to build the world's largest tritium fuel cycle plant.
When can we shut down coal plants?
Forecasts are cautiously optimistic. There are at least 20 fusion plant projects in various stages of development. with completion dates ranging from 2030 to 2055. The boldest, like Commonwealth, are aiming for the early 2030s. The more cautious are talking about 2050.
As highlighted here, “Fusion Energy Accelerates Toward Commercialization. The Question Is No Longer ‘If,’ But ‘When.’” Dennis Whyte of MIT, co-founder of Commonwealth, he has no doubts:
“This will be a watershed moment for fusion. The ambition is to build thousands of these plants and change the world.”
Commercial Nuclear Fusion: The Future Knocking at the Door
There is a sense that we are having our SpaceX moment of commercial nuclear fusion. Just as Elon Musk transformed the space industry, we now have a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to transform energy. An industry that has seen the birth of over 60% of private companies since 2019.
The stakes are very high: a virtually unlimited, clean and safe source of energy, capable of replacing fossil fuels. If the promises come true, in about fifteen years we will find ourselves telling our children how we did it before, when energy came from coal and oil.
But perhaps the most incredible thing is that all this could happen much sooner than we think. The future of energy is no longer a distant promise: it is being born in a county in Virginia, twenty kilometers from Rome, and in dozens of laboratories scattered around the world. For the first time in the history of humanity, lighting a star on Earth no longer sounds so remote. On the contrary.
