Fusion nuclear energy one step closer under California law

By Madeline Shannon
The Center Square

A nuclear fusion bill signed into law this month in California would advance efforts to develop a safer, less radioactive energy source that could power the state.

If developed at a commercial scale, fusion could transform the way energy is produced and position California to be the first place in the world to develop a fusion energy pilot program, experts told The Center Square.

That expansion is the primary aim of Senate Bill 80, sponsored by state Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced. The bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Oct. 3, directs the California Energy Commission to ramp up development of fusion energy through a new initiative, the Fusion Research and Development Innovation Fund, according to Caballero’s office.

The ultimate goal of the bill is to develop the world’s first commercial fusion energy pilot project by the 2040s. If developed in that timeline, the fusion energy industry has the potential to generate $1.4 billion in economic output and create 4,700 jobs in California, according to a report compiled by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp.

Fusion energy, according to the bill, has nearly unlimited potential to produce clean, safe and reliable energy. Fusion energy can be produced without also producing the harmful side effects of other forms of energy production, which often include air pollution, dangerous emissions or long-lasting nuclear waste.

Fission energy, the only way that has been developed commercially to produce energy so far, often has the long-lasting environmental consequences that the public often thinks for nuclear energy, experts told The Center Square.

Fusion energy is far less radioactive and doesn’t carry the same risks, according to experts.

“You don’t have long-lasting, highly radioactive waste that sits around and has to be remediated for thousands of years,” Evan Polisar, government relations director at General Atomic Energy Group, told The Center Square. “There is no chance of having a meltdown. Inherently, it’s a very safe source of power.”

Simply put, fusion energy smashes light atoms together to create energy, while fission energy is created when atoms are cut or pulled apart, two sources with knowledge of both fission and fusion energy said.

“Fusion energy has the immense potential to provide consistent, clean base-load power on demand, which is essential to ensuring grid reliability and meeting our clean energy goals,” said Caballero in the press conference announcing her bill was signed into law. “The energy it would produce is potentially limitless, without including any harmful waste byproducts.”

Fission has been used to produce electricity for more than 70 years, experts said. Fusion is a lot newer.

“When we operate, we do fusion 30 times a day,” Polisar told The Center Square about General Atomic Energy Group’s experiments. “We know how to do it. The question is how do you take it from something that takes energy off the grid to something that adds energy to the grid.”

According to the bill analysis of SB 80, scientists worked for decades to develop fusion energy successfully. Private companies and federal laboratories, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., have recently pushed that development forward.

“Energy obviously has huge implications on a number of different dimensions,” Morgan Pattison, special adviser to Blue Laser Fusion, told The Center Square. “The implications are in the trillions of dollars, just that, but then of course there’s energy security and environmental and energy justice implications as well.”

Officials from the California Energy Commission, Caballero’s office, the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.