Google buys fusion power

CFS

GOOGLE has agreed to buy half the power from what could be the world’s first grid-scale fusion energy plant.

The tech giant has signed a power purchase agreement for 200 MW of electricity from Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ (CFS) inaugural fusion plant which it expects will come online in the early 2030s. CFS plans to construct the plant in Virginia, US, which is a major hub for data centres.

The prospect of clean fusion power, which must overcome many engineering hurdles before it is commercialised, looks attractive to companies running power-hungry data centres and artificial intelligence services.

Fusion power replicates the process at the heart of the Sun and, if successfully developed on Earth, could generate near-limitless power without the large volumes of radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission.

CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard said: “We aim to demonstrate fusion’s ability to provide reliable, abundant, clean energy at the scale needed to unlock economic growth and improve modern living – and enable what will be the largest market transition in history.”

Michael Terrell, Google’s head of advanced energy, said: “We’re excited to make this longer-term bet on a technology with transformative potential to meet the world’s future energy demand, and support CFS in their efforts to reach the scientific and engineering milestones needed to get there.”

CFS is designing a doughnut-shaped reactor – known as a tokamak – that uses magnetic fields to control a cloud of superheated plasma in which particles fuse and give off energy. By developing high-temperature superconductors to generate stronger magnetic fields, CFS aims to make its design smaller and more economical.

CFS, which was spun out of MIT, is building a demonstration plant in Massachusetts known as SPARC that the company predicts will, in 2027, become the first machine to produce more energy from fusion than is needed to power the process. Google’s power purchase hinges on this being achieved. If CFS can meet that milestone then it will build a larger 400 MW machine known as ARC near Richmond in Virginia.