Highlights from the 2025 Ignition Summit, New York City
On Tuesday May 20th, The Fusion Report attended the 2025 Ignition Summit at Newlab in New York City. The summit was booked as the meeting of leaders in both nuclear fission and fusion energy to discuss policy, the state of the industries, and to collaborate on the next generation of clean energy. Presenters included key names from both fusion and fission, including a number of fusion energy corporate/technology leaders, such as Brandon Sorbom (co-founder/CSO, Commonwealth Fusion Systems), Will Regan (co-founder/President, Pacific Fusion), Alexander Valyx (President/CTO, Xcimer Energy), Brian Berzin (CEO, Thea Energy), and Robin Langtree (CEO, Avalanche Energy). In addition to these fusion leaders, there were roughly twenty-four (24) executives and senior leaders from fusion companies, clean energy investors, and industry pundits (see the end of the article for a list of presenters). Here are some of the highlights of this conference.
Different Industries, Similar Problems
For two energy sources that were born out of the same set of circumstances (World War II and the Cold War), fusion energy and nuclear fission energy could not be more different. Without beating a dead horse (or two), here are some of the key differences:
For all of these differences, there are a number of similarities as between fusion energy and nuclear fission energy as well:
- Electrical power plants built with these technologies are both expensive, costing in the range of $6 billion for a 1GW-capacity power plant.
- Both have cheap (but not free) fuel, with fusion having the advantage over nuclear fission in fuel prices.
- Both have a need for periodic overhaul due to life-limited components, with fission having a (likely) advantage over fusion from a cost standpoint.
- We are in a race with China in both cases: the first country to commercialize fusion, and the country with the largest nuclear energy output for fission.
- Both need significant investment today to grow their footprint in the US energy market.
Fusion and Fission from the Investor’s Standpoint
Let’s look at that last point – the need for investment today by both industries for them to be relevant. Let’s start with what “relevant” means in terms of energy policy (particularly in the US). Per the US Energy Information Agency (US-EIA), nuclear power represented 18.6% of US electricity generation. It is second only to natural gas, which represents 43.1% of US electricity generation, while coal is 16.2%, wind power is 10.2%, and hydropower is 5.7%.
For nuclear fission to remain relevant, it means not seeing a significant shrinkage of its market share. Unfortunately, the average age of US nuclear power plants is 42 years old, which is close to their maximum lifetime, and is the third oldest in the world. Worse yet, many of the nuclear reactors in other western countries are only slightly newer, as shown in the illustration above. By comparison, China’s 55 nuclear reactors have an average age of nine (9) years.
This makes one of the biggest drivers for new investment in nuclear fission the cost of new power plants to replace the existing fleet of 92 nuclear power plants in the US. The second driver is the need for next-generation technology nuclear reactors, which could potentially reverse the current negative public perception of nuclear fission. Neither of these are cheap, which presents a considerable challenge for the nuclear fission industry.
For fusion, the problem is a little clearer. While there has been considerable investment in fusion energy over the past six years, it is still not enough to commercialize fusion energy. In particular, the fusion supply chain needs considerable additional investment to scale up in support of the overall fusion scaling. In this sense, fusion energy is not that different from nuclear fission, which also needs an expanded supply chain to support the wholesale replacement of US nuclear fission power plants.
Alternate Revenue Paths – An Answer for Both Industries
If investment is not forthcoming or adequate, then finding alternative ways to raise capital become more of an imperative. While the approach to this is not the same with fusion energy and nuclear fission, it is becoming more important for many of the smaller players in each industry. In fusion energy, the niches which companies have gone into to create revenue include: high-energy neutron sources for nuclear and materials research; building high-temperature superconducting magnets; isotope creation; and tritium breeding. For fission, the approach appears to be more along the lines of deployable/portable power sources. These include uses for power at remote bases, for spaceborne applications, and for strategic uses.
As a number of fusion companies have found out, the key to this approach is to ensure that the secondary revenue opportunities do not stray too far from the basic capabilities that the company needs for its fusion (or fission) products. The further a company gets pulled into secondary uses of its technologies, the harder it tends to be to focus on the primary goal of creating the technologies, supply chain, and regulatory environment to be successful.
Summary: Similar Issues, But Different Levels of Investor Interest?
To be sure, both fusion energy and nuclear fission have similar issues: a need for capital, a supply chain for critical technologies, and an attractive regulatory environment. The issue with nuclear fission is that it has “already had its shot”, and recapitalizing the nuclear fission energy segment will not be cheap. While getting fusion energy to commercialization will also not be cheap (it will in fact likely cost more than recapitalizing the nuclear fission industry), the ROI for investment in fusion is likely going to be significantly higher than that for nuclear fission.
