"Livermore's National Ignition Facility has made major breakthroughs in the push to bring nuclear fusion - the reaction that powers the sun - to Earth's electric grids. So it made sense that the city council rolled out a charm campaign this year to try to win a new $1 billion project from the energy startup Pacific Fusion. Alameda, 30 miles east, badly wanted the facility as well."
"But on Friday, both the Bay Area cities were snubbed. Fremont-based Pacific Fusion selected its third finalist, Albuquerque, as the site for its new research and manufacturing campus, ending a campaign that saw the three competitors offer land, permits and incentives to the company. In the end, New Mexico's largest city won out, after it and the state enticed Pacific Fusion with $10 million for buying the needed land and building the facility."
"With the planned site, Pacific Fusion hopes to build on the National Ignition Facility's breakthroughs to engineer a fusion system that creates more energy than it takes as input, by 2030. The company is one of a few trying to commercialize the cutting-edge nuclear fusion process, where low-weight atoms are pushed so hard together, at such a high temperature, that they combine and then release energy."
Pacific Fusion selected Albuquerque as the site for a planned $1 billion research and manufacturing campus after New Mexico and the city offered $10 million to buy land and build the facility plus substantial tax exemptions. Fremont and Alameda competed, offering land, permits and incentives. Pacific Fusion aims to leverage Livermore's National Ignition Facility breakthroughs to engineer a fusion system that produces net energy by 2030. Fusion requires forcing light atoms together at extremely high temperatures so they combine and release energy. A 2022 ignition produced brief net energy, but the process still consumed much more power overall and scaling to a commercial plant remains a major challenge.
Read at SFGATE
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