Fusion energy industry presses US government for billions in support

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Fusion energy industry leaders met with U.S. Department of Energy officials on Monday to urge them to facilitate billions of dollars for projects seeking to generate electricity by the process that powers the sun.

The department in November created an Office of Fusion in a reorganization that focused on fossil fuel and nuclear energy while eliminating renewable energy offices.

The Trump administration has rescinded billions of dollars that former President Joe Biden authorized to subsidize hydrogen and renewable energy projects.

Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association, said the leaders urged the officials to steer some of that money to fusion so companies can compete in the race with China.

“Now is the time for the U.S. to make a significant investment, and that means over a billion dollars per year in annual appropriations and a one-time infrastructure investment,” Holland said. “If they ask for it, we are confident Congress would pass it.”

Companies and physicists at national laboratories have been trying for decades to use lasers or large magnets to foster fusion reactions, in which light atoms are forced together to release huge amounts of energy.

In 2022, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California briefly achieved net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. But generating more energy from of a fusion reaction than required to spark it has been a tall hurdle.

The fusion leaders also spoke to the officials about Trump’s plan to launch an integrated artificial intelligence platform called Genesis Mission to harness federal scientific datasets to train next-generation technologies they said could benefit fusion.

“The Energy Department and the Genesis Mission can ensure the U.S. remains at the forefront, bridging the gap between research and commercialization,” said Marvi Matos Rodriguez, senior vice president of technology at fusion company Zap Energy.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)