A US startup, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), is making significant progress in developing practical nuclear fusion power plants, potentially outpacing larger, established international projects and offering a path to virtually limitless clean energy.
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There are complex building sites. And
then there are these. [Music]
[Music]
For decades, scientists and engineers
have been trying to construct giant
machines that recreate what happens
inside the sun. Say it with me. Nuclear
fusion. It's where instead of splitting
atoms to generate power like with
nuclear fision, they're forced together
at extreme temperatures. If successful,
these systems could bring about a
virtually limitless source of energy.
But unsurprisingly, it's proving to be
immensely difficult with even huge
multinational collaborations struggling
to make it work. But now, a new player
has entered the race. It's a small
privately funded US startup that's
making rapid progress. And not only is
it catching up to its much bigger
competitors, it looks like it might just
win a race to master a technology that
So, if you're not a regular viewer of
the B1M, then right about now you're
probably thinking, "What on earth is
nuclear fusion?" If you want a full
rundown, it's worth going to check out
the video we did back in 2024 when I
traveled inside the world's largest
nuclear fusion reactor that's currently
under construction down in the south of
France. If you're off to do that, great.
But keep this tab open. Come back and
finish this video. We'd really
appreciate it. If you don't want to do
that, if you think it's all a bit
technical, then don't worry because
we've put together a simple summary of
nuclear fusion. Basically, nuclear
fusion is where you take a whole bunch
of hydrogen atoms, heat them up a lot.
We're talking over 100 million° C, and
bring them to the point where they form
a plasma. This causes them to fuse
together, and create helium and
neutrons, generating huge amounts of
energy. It all happens in a special
donut-shaped vacuum chamber known as a
tokamac. Inside a series of magnetic
fields confine the plasma and suspend it
within a space known as the Taurus. That
way it can be kept apart from anything solid.
solid.
>> The fuel we have um inside the tokamac
is a mix of dutium and tridium which are
both types of hydrogen. You need very
very small amounts of fusion fuel. So
like over the course of a year a 400
megawatt net electric arc power plant
will use roughly 100 kg of fuel. Now the
superconducting magnets that make all
this possible have to be incredibly
strong and able to withstand those crazy
temperatures and usually they have to be
absolutely massive and made from
complicated sounding materials like
nobamin which are very hard to come by
but that's not necessarily the case
anymore as we'll discover in a bit. If
you're still with us then well done.
When I visited IETA in the south of
France, that's the international
thermonuclear experimental reactor. It
was an amazing experience. The place is
absolutely epic both in its scale and
its ambition. But as I discovered when I
was there, there's been a few setbacks
and delays because building a nuclear
fusion machine is extremely difficult.
Another key thing to remember about
Eater is that it's basically a huge
experiment and won't provide electricity
for people to actually use. Whereas this
firm over in America is planning to
construct a fully operational TOKAC and
is on the way to building a power plant
that can bring nuclear fusion power to
the grid, something which has never been
done. Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the
name, and it's considerably smaller and
younger than that huge organization over
in Europe, which was formed way back in
the 1980s. CFS was only founded in 2018
by a team from the Plasma Science and
Fusion Center, which is part of the
famous Massachusetts Institute of
Technology or MIT. We are basically
trying to build fusion power plants um
around the world um and use that to make
you know firm, clean uh abundant energy.
We're about 7 years old as a company. Um
we're about roughly a thousand people
now. Um so we we've grown a bit in those
in those years.
>> So how are they going to harness that
power and get it to the grid? Well,
there will be something surrounding all
that plasma in the Tokamac. It's called
a blanket made from a type of molten
salt that's going to heat up and
generate steam with the rest of the
system set up in a similar way to a
nuclear fision plant. All the steam gets
passed through a turbine which then
turns and generates electricity. As for
where the plant's going to be
constructed, it'll be happening right
here on this plot of land in Virginia
just outside Richmond. But before we get
into that, I know this video has a lot
of jargon. When I first started this
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Now it's time to focus on that nuclear
fusion plant called Ark. It'll provide
400 megawatt of fusion generated
electricity straight to the state's
power reserves. That's enough for around
150,000 homes and the plan is to have it
running by the early 2030s. Now, if
you're a Marvel fan, that name might
sound familiar. The glowing thing that
powers Iron Man suits is called the Ark
Reactor, and it was based on the idea of
nuclear fusion.
>> The Ark Reactor was a stepping stone to
something greater,
>> something so big that it was going to
make the nuclear reactor look like a AAA battery.
battery.
>> Now, we don't know whether CFS's plant
is a nod to this or just a coincidence,
but either way, nuclear fusion machines
now something you're not going to see
just in the movies. This is happening
for real. And just like Tony Stark, the
company's teamed up with some powerful
allies to complete its worthy mission.
Dominium Energy, the largest utility
company in the state of Virginia, has
signed up to provide expertise and
leasing rights for the site. They've
been getting plenty of financial
backing, too. So far, the firm has
received more than $2 billion in private
funding with Bill Gates as one of its
investors, and it's taken in millions of
dollars in grants. Another sign that CFS
should be taken seriously came in the
form of a new strategic partnership with
Google signed in June 2025. It's a deal
that saw the tech giant agree to
purchase 200 megawatt, yes, half of all
the power generated from this first
plant. Google has the option to buy
power from future plants as well, and
it's also upped its stake in CFS,
although details of that haven't been
released just yet. So, they're not short
of money or bigname partners, but surely
you can't just go and piece together a
nuclear fusion power plant, something
that's eluded scientists for decades,
without building some kind of prototype
first. Well, yes, which is why they've
been doing exactly that. Before they
build the ark, they need to finish this.
The Spark under construction in Devons,
Massachusetts, which is about 50 mi
northwest of Boston. It's a demo project
that CFS is going to use to prove that
commercial fusion is actually possible.
>> We have to build the tokamac itself. Um
but we also have to build a facility
around it to support um and operate the
machine and also to take the fusion heat
out. We have a tok hall that has four
like wings around it. And I like to
think that each of those buildings has
something that either goes into the
tokamac or comes out of the tokamac.
Firstly, there's the operations
building, which is full of diagnostic
equipment used to run the machine and
monitor what's happening in sight. Then
you've got the radio frequency heating
building, which houses all the
electronics needed to cook the hydrogen
fuel up to the right temperature. I say
cook because it works in a similar way
to a microwave oven, except it uses
radio waves instead. Now, I don't need
to say this because you've made it this
far into a nuclear fusion video. you're
already a reasonably intelligent human
being. But remember, this is for cooking
plasma, not pizza. Don't try and cook a
pizza in a Taco Mac because you're going
to end up with it very well done and
you'll have personally sabotaged
mankind's shot at clean energy.
Next up is the power building, and
that's where all the electricity that
goes into those magnets comes from.
Finally, there's the utility building,
which, no, is not full of washing
machines and cleaning supplies. The
utility room is much cooler, quite
literally. As well as being the place
where the fusion heat is removed, it's
home to all the cryogenic equipment for
keeping the magnets cold. Like
seriously, seriously cold. We're talking
lower than -400°
F. Going back to the Tokamac, one thing
that makes the Spark one different to
others that have been built before is
the approach being taken with those
magnets. Although they might look
similar to the ones used at Eater with
the same D-shape, they're actually made
from something else. Developed by CFS,
they use a new type of material called
Rebco, which stands for rare earth
barerium copper oxide. This was
discovered in the 1980s, but for a long
time, you could only make like tiny tiny
tiny quantities in a lab somewhere. But
in the last like maybe 10 years or so,
um like you know a number of companies
around the world have ramped up
production of that considerably. So you
can you can make industrially relevant
quantities of it now. And our innovation
was take that material and uh engineer a
magnet out of it.
>> According to the company, these magnets
are so strong they can be smaller than
ones found on other TOKAS, which means
the whole system can be scaled down as
well. That's pretty obvious when you
look at where they're building their
prototype reactor. This place is big,
but it's still dwarfed by the enormous
Eater Enclave. The idea is to have Spark
producing its first plasma as soon as 2026.
2026.
Once that happens, the focus is then
going to switch to reaching net positive
state. That's where more energy is
coming out of the nuclear fusion
reaction than goes in to power it. And
only once they've got to that point are
they then going to go and build the main
plant. There's also another reason why
CFS appears to be in a bit of a hurry.
This is not a one-horse race. It has
competition from other groups who also
believe they have what it takes to build
the first commercial facility.
Washington-based Helion Energy is
probably its main American rival and
reckons it could have a plant operating
even sooner by 2028. They've already
built six prototypes of their reactor
and have signed their own power purchase
agreement with Microsoft. Then you've
got China. Although it seems to be a bit
behind the US on the path to commercial
power, the country is running some of
the world's largest and most advanced
experimental fusion projects. They're
planning to raise the bar even further
by constructing the first ever fusion
fision plant in the next 5 years. That's
where neutrons made from fusion can
cause fision to occur in surrounding materials.
materials.
Now, don't worry. We're not going to go
into any more detail on that because we
think you've had enough science for one
day. We also don't actually know
anything more about it. But the point is
Commonwealth Fusion Systems might be the
one to bet on right now, but it's also
got quite a bit of competition. And as
we've seen before, getting this process
right can be extremely difficult.
>> CFS has been set up with the sole
purpose of like go build fusion power
plants. So I think like we are
structured to be fast, to be efficient,
to be like have this like very clear
mission known physics, this new magnet
technology and then like a purpose-built
organization allow us to move quickly.
>> Whoever emerges victorious, it's a
breakthrough that can't come soon
enough. Our planet is set to see
unprecedented growth in demand for
electricity over the coming years.
Rising populations will lead to more
housing, businesses, and infrastructure.
Then you've got the electrification of
transport and the rise of power- hungry
tech like AI. Wherever it comes from,
having a new source of clean, abundant
energy can only be seen as a positive. A
technology that's promised so much for
so long could finally be unleashed.
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