Source: United States Senator for Washington Maria Cantwell
05.10.23
A “Historic Announcement,” Says Cantwell, as Everett-Based Helion Energy Announces World’s First-Ever Deal to Sell Fusion-Powered Electricity
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, hailed Everett-based Helion Energy’s announcement that they will be the first company in the world to generate and sell electricity from a fusion reactor.
“Fusion is inherently clean, inherently safe, and could one day provide vast amounts of the type of power we need to tackle the climate crisis,” said Sen. Cantwell. “Today’s historic announcement confirms that the State of Washington is the world’s leading hub for fusion energy innovation and commercialization.”
Under the agreement, Helion will provide Microsoft electricity from its first fusion power plant. The plant, which Helion plans to build in the State of Washington, is expected to be online by 2028 with an eventual target power generation of 50 megawatts or greater.
This first-of-its-kind sale agreement comes just six months after the breakthrough demonstration of fusion ignition at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California, which proved that fusion could be a viable power generation process.
Fusion, the same process that powers the sun, typically utilizes an inexhaustible supply of water as its fuel, and produces negligible atmospheric emissions and zero greenhouse gas emissions. Fusion reactors cannot meltdown, and do not generate the high-level, long-lasting radioactive waste associated with nuclear fission reactors.
Thanks to leading fusion companies like Helion, which operates out of a 150,000 square foot warehouse near Paine Field, as well as Everett-based Zap and Seattle-based Avalanche, many consider the Puget Sound region to be the world’s biggest fusion energy hub.
During a Senate hearing last month, Sen. Cantwell pressed Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about plans to expand federal support for fusion research. At an Energy Committee hearing last September, Sen. Cantwell asked fusion experts like Dr. Scott Hsu, Lead Fusion Coordinator for the Department of Energy, and Professor Steven Cowley, Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, about what more we can be doing to boost fusion R&D and make sure we can manufacture fusion components domestically.
Congress has shown its support for fusion development in the Cantwell-led CHIPS & Science Act, which authorized nearly $7 billion for fusion-related R&D and pilot projects over the next five years. Last year the White House additionally released a “bold decadal vision” for commercial fusion deployment. The Biden Administration’s recently released budget request asks Congress to invest more than $1 billion to support R&D on fusion reactors. That funding boost is a follow up to a March 17, 2022 White House announcement of a “Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy.” That announcement set out how, in ten years, the U.S. can have multiple fusion pilot plants of different sizes, approaches, and fuels operating in new fusion technology hubs around the country. Private investment in fusion increased by 139% in the past year alone, now standing at over $5 billion worldwide.