FUSION ENERGY NEWS

Helion Energy secured the licenses needed to operate a fusion power plant, clearing the way for its Orion plant in Malaga, Washington. General Atomics will collaborate with the DOE to design the first full-scale fusion blanket test facility. General Fusion’s roughly $1 billion merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. III cleared SEC review, with a shareholder vote set for July 6. Type One Energy added former bp CEO Bernard Looney to its board, and Inertia formed a Science and Technology Advisory Board. The Fusion Report also looks at China EAST’s run at 2027 ignition, asks whether data centers belong in space, and refreshes its Top Fusion Companies by Funding tracker at $11.4 billion across 24 companies.

The Department of Energy released its finalized Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap on June 9, built with input from more than 800 scientists and engineers, targeting commercial fusion by the mid-2030s. The same day, Tennessee became the first state in the nation to regulate fusion machines, clearing a path for Type One Energy’s Infinity Two plant near Oak Ridge. On June 10, DOE approved Xcimer Energy’s 724-page Athena preconceptual power plant design. The Fusion Report also goes deep on Realta Fusion’s Hammir-DT tandem mirror power plant design and Thea Energy’s collaboration with NVIDIA, Synopsys, Argonne, and PPPL to build a digital twin of its Helios stellarator.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the largest and most expensive fusion machine ever built, with a projected cost of between $20B and $24B and final-stage completion now pushed out to 2039. Meanwhile, commercial machines like Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ ARC are expected to deliver 400 MW of electricity in the early 2030s at a fraction of ITER’s price. The Fusion Report traces ITER’s four decades of international cooperation and schedule slips, compares its progress against NIF’s ignition milestones and EAST’s long-pulse records, and weighs what ITER can still uniquely deliver. The verdict: ITER’s value may now rest on being an insurance policy, one that only pays off if commercial fusion slips.

Things You Gotta Know Focused Energy Closes Record $240 Million Series A to Build Germany’s First Laser Fusion Power Plant Focused Energy announced on May 27 that it has raised $240 million in Series A funding, the largest fully secured Series A in the global fusion…

The Fusion Report sized up where battery energy storage technology is headed and asked whether the next generation of AI-powered robots will run on fusion. The NRC is moving toward a substantially lighter federal review of fusion, Germany joined the EU’s IPCEI on innovative nuclear technologies for fusion only, Singapore’s A*STAR signed a five-year research pact with CFS, Canada backed a fusion-based copper-67 isotope production project, General Fusion brought on capital markets veteran Thomas Boehlert as it prepares for the public markets, and JT-60SA cleared its upgrade cycle and prepared for restart.