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Project would revolutionize global energy, but is a

long-shot

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Technology would replicate reactions that power the stars

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Virginia facility aims to produce electricity early next

decade

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Commonwealth Fusion

Systems, a private company spun off from the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, plans what it calls the world's first

grid-scale fusion power plant in Virginia, to generate power by

the early 2030s, the company said on Tuesday.

The project, if successful, could revolutionize the global

energy industry by tapping into a virtually limitless power

source, similar to that which fuels the stars.

But it is a long-shot. CFS lacks local and federal permits,

investors to fund most of the plant's construction, and the

answer to fusion's top technological question: how to get more

energy out of a fusion reaction than what goes into it in the

first place.

Still, CFS, the largest private-sector fusion company, which

has raised $2 billion since 2018 mainly for demonstration

projects, is confident more money will flow for the plant.

"The fact that there's a broad investor syndicate, that's a

good thing," Bob Mumgaard, the company's CEO, told Reuters ahead

of the announcement. CFS investors include Italian energy

company ENI, Temasek, a sovereign wealth fund from

Singapore, and Norway's Equinor ( EQNR ).

For decades, scientists in the U.S., China, Europe, Russia

and Japan have hoped that fusion, the reaction that produces the

light and heat from the sun, can be replicated and sustained on

Earth.

To create fusion reactions, physicists use lasers or magnets

to jam two light atoms into one, releasing large amounts of

energy. When harnessed, the reactions could be used in power

stations to generate emissions-free electricity, helping to

fight climate change.

As power demand rises due to growth in artificial

intelligence, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrencies, companies

are raising billions of dollars in hopes of commercializing the

technology.

Unlike today's nuclear reactors, powered by fission, which

splits atoms, fusion does not generate large amounts of

long-lasting radioactive waste.

But there are other challenges, such as ensuring materials

withstand constant bombardments of high-energy neutrons and some

of the hottest temperatures ever created on Earth, and how to

transfer that heat to a turbine to generate electricity.

Getting reactions to occur almost continuously instead of

once in a while is yet another challenge.

A fusion breakthrough came two years ago when scientists at

a U.S. lab in California briefly achieved "fusion ignition" with

lasers, though the energy output was tiny compared to the energy

firing the lasers.

NO GUARANTEE

CFS said it will start seeking local, state and federal

permits next year. That is well before it expects to produce in

2026 its first plasma, or a superheated, charged state of matter

that allows fusion reactions, at SPARC, its demonstration

magnet-driven project in Massachusetts.

It hopes to reach net energy shortly after.

"There is of course no guarantee in life that all will go

according to plan, but it's pretty sure if you don't prepare, it

won't," Mumgaard said about the plan to build in Virginia before

ironing out the science.

Dominion Energy ( D ) will provide non-financial help,

including development and technical expertise and leasing rights

for the proposed site in Chesterfield County.

Edward Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia, said

CFS is "advancing the exciting energy potential of fusion."

CFS expects ARC, the plant planned for Virginia, will have

capacity to generate 400 megawatts of electricity - enough to

power industrial sites or about 150,000 homes.

Last year, the five-member U.S. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission voted unanimously to separate fusion regulation from

fission regulation, a move that developers of the new technology

said would allow them to innovate.

Last week, two anonymous NRC staffers who helped develop the

rule, challenged the different licensing approach in a public

document saying such plants could use large amounts of water for

cooling and leak tritium, a hard-to-contain radioactive isotope.

Mumgaard said CFS is learning how to deal with tritium at

its Massachusetts facility and that the staffers' criticisms

were "just part of the normal process of staff working through"

fusion issues.