Fusion technology, channeling the power of isotopes to create energy, is inching closer to commercialization every year with a cluster of companies founded in Wisconsin leading the pack.
Wisconsin has been at the forefront of fusion technology for decades thanks to the state’s research universities, according to several experts in the field. Recent advancements in technology have led those same experts to believe that new fusion plants will be up and running within the next decade.
“We see no roadblocks,” said Chris Hegna, Ph.D., vice president of stellarator optimization and co-founder of Type One Energy. “It’s just a matter of us executing.”
Hegna and his co-founder, David Anderson, Ph.D., met during their time working as faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Anderson serves as Type One Energy’s vice president of systems engineering.
Anderson built three different stellarators (a device used in fusion energy research) during his 42-year tenure at UW. Hegna, whose background is in theoretical plasma physics, watched Anderson with interest as he developed the school’s HSX (Helically Symmetric eXperiment) program over the span of two decades.
“Born out of the frustrations of working with the federal government on making fusion work, we founded (this) company together,” said Hegna.
Type One Energy was officially launched in 2019 with the goal of commercializing a newer version of its stellarator. Today, the company is headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee. Between its additional offices in Madison, Boston and Vancouver, Type One Energy employs approximately 150 people.
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Types of fusion
Fusion involves taking hydrogen isotopes, typically deuterium or tritium, and smashing them together. Through this process, an alpha particle and a free neutron are created. A difference in mass between the starting and end particles creates excess energy.
There are two main methods used to recreate fusion on Earth. The first process, called inertial confinement fusion, relies on lasers. Tiny pellets of fuel, the hydrogen, are compressed and heated rapidly with lasers to trigger a thermonuclear explosion.
The second method for recreating fusion relies on magnetic confinement. This means using a magnetic field to confine plasma within a machine long enough to heat it up and allow for fusion. A stellarator, what Type One Energy is working to commercialize, is a specific kind of magnetic confinement device that can confine plasma.
“It’s using very strong magnetic fields because everything’s charged,” said Anderson. “It’s like an invisible force field bomb, like on ‘Star Trek.’”
The Type One team proved out the concept of its stellarator technology through the creation of its HSX and W7-X machines. Now, the company is working to design a modern version of these machines using technologies like high-temperature superconductors.
The HSX program is still running today and was “wildly successful,” said Hegna. This success formed the backbone of Type One Energy’s business.
“We’re designing and hopefully building in the near term the world’s best stellarator by any stretch of the imagination,” said Hegna. “It’s much better than (any machine) that has been designed in the past and we think it will outperform any magnetic confinement device ever built.”
Type One Energy is currently partnered with the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville. There, the company has access to a shuttered coal power plant where it can pilot its technology.
Eventually, Type One Energy hopes to open its first fusion plants in Tennessee. Anderson and Hegna imagine repurposing existing power plants to gain access to their infrastructure, including water, power and coolants. The duo believes their first facility could be open within the next decade.
Type One Energy is already having discussions with Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group regarding future collaborations, according to Anderson.
Fusion's potential as an economic engine
In the coming decades, Kiernan Furlong, co-founder and CEO of Madison-based Realta Fusion, believes the production of fusion devices could serve as a major economic engine in Wisconsin.
Making energy will be focused on manufacturing machines rather than the fuel used to power those machines. Since fusion essentially has an endless power supply in water, where hydrogen isotopes are sourced, current dependence on fossil fuels will disappear.
“It’s more about technology, and if you can make the machines to release that energy,” said Furlong. “It’s going to be more of a manufacturing industry.”
Fusion is already providing business for midwestern manufacturers who are making the expensive, and highly technical, machines used to conduct fusion experiments, Furlong explained.
Realta Fusion is taking a slightly different approach with its fusion technology, focusing on magnetic mirrors.
A chemical engineer who grew up in rural Ireland, Furlong describes himself as an environmentalist who has always cared about climate change.
He found himself drawn to sustainable technologies and landed in the biofuels industry. That’s how he first encountered the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He eventually took on a faculty role there and met his co-founder, Cary Forest.
He left UW-Madison for a brief period and returned to help lead the school’s Wisconsin High-field Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) project.
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Realta co-founder Jay Anderson (left) and CEO and co-founder Kieran Furlong discuss the Wisconsin High-field Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) experiment. Credit: Amadou Kromah[/caption]
The WHAM project
Realta’s technology, which was tested through the WHAM project over the past year, involves magnetic mirrors that confine plasma between two high-field superconducting magnets. The strong magnetic fields cause charged particles to bounce back and forth.
The plasma is heated to temperatures that are ten times hotter than the surface of the sun.
“For fusion to happen, you need three things from the plasma,” said Furlong. “You need it to be hot enough and dense enough for long enough.”
The WHAM project received a $10 million ARPA-E (American Rescue Plan Act energy research) grant in 2020. Construction of the WHAM device took three and half years.
WHAM recently achieved its first plasma, a major milestone in demonstrating the potential of high-field magnetic mirror technology to create commercially viable fusion energy.
Realta Fusion officially became a company spun out from the WHAM project in 2022.
“When WHAM turned on in 2024, it was the first time these very high field HTS (high-temperature superconducting) magnets were used in a fusion experiment, and the first time in a magnetic mirror as well,” said Furlong.
The next step the company must reach before commercializing its technology is finding a way to control and stabilize the plasma that is created. Realta is building a larger version of its WHAM device, called Anvil, which will eventually be housed at the Realta Forge, a purpose-built fusion facility.
The exact location of Realta Forge has not been decided, but Wisconsin is being considered.
Realta also completed a $36 million series A funding round in May to further develop its technology. Furlong expects Realta to finish its first energy producing plant by the mid-2030s.
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The WHAM experiment ready for its first high-field plasma run. Credit: Elliot Claveau, Realta Fusion[/caption]
Fusion versus fission
Modern fusion energy is a much cleaner and safer process than nuclear fission, a process in which atoms are split apart.
Fission is harder to control and could lead to runaway reactions. Furlong likened the process to rolling a basketball down a hill.
“It will roll and gather speed, and it’s hard to hang on to,” he said.
Meanwhile, fusion is more like spinning a basketball on your finger. While it requires a bit more technical expertise, the ball is always being actively controlled. Once the ball falls, it stops spinning.
“With fusion, you will not have runaway reactions,” said Furlong. “It’s basically fail-safe.”
The byproduct from fusion reactions is helium, the same gas that fills party ballons. This is a far cry from the radioactive byproducts people have come to associate with fission.
“Fusion plants are safer than a regular power plant in the sense that you don’t have a smokestack belching all of the coal products,” said Anderson.
Federal and Wisconsin support for fusion
The race to commercialize fusion energy comes at a time when both state officials and the Trump administration are emphasizing the importance of energy independence.
At the national level, President Trump signed a May 23 executive order aimed at “reinvigorating the nuclear industrial base.”
Nuclear energy encompasses both fusion and fission.
Already, the Department of Energy is promoting fusion energy through its Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.
The government selected eight companies in the U.S. to help develop fusion power plants. Three of those eight companies were founded in Wisconsin: Realta Fusion, Type One Energy and SHINE Technologies.
SHINE Technologies, which is based in Janesville, has raised nearly $800 million since its founding in 2010, according to a recent Canary Media article. That funding is helping the company commercialize its fusion technology.
Here in Wisconsin, a group of state representatives has introduced a bill that would require the Public Service Commission to conduct a nuclear power sitting study.
The study would examine nuclear power and fusion power opportunities in the state, along with potential energy generation sites.
A separate joint resolution introduced to the Assembly recognizes that the Wisconsin State Legislature is committed to supporting nuclear power and fusion energy.
While the exact economic impact fusion energy could have on the state is unknown, experts in the field agree Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to benefit from a future boom in demand.
“There’s a recognition that there’s a know-how (in Wisconsin) that’s going to enable the technology and ideas that are emerging from the University of Wisconsin and other research institutions,” said Furlong.
Anderson agrees that Wisconsin’s reputation as the “machine shop to the world” puts the state in a unique position to manufacture fusion devices.
“That’s something that I think is very attractive to a lot of people, and then the university has been critical to (supporting fusion research),” said Anderson. “For better or worse, Wisconsin’s had a disproportionate impact on the future of energy.”
