Turns out that the digital infrastructure industry is so committed in its desire for future nuclear energy that it’s willing to sign up and pay for technology which doesn’t even commercially exist yet. Google has committed to a 200-MW offtake agreement with nuclear fusion firm Commonwealth Fusion Systems from its first-ever power plant to be sited, if and when it’s approved and built, in Chesterfield County, Virginia. The power purchase agreement (PPA), like those around small modular nuclear fission startups, will only take effect when CFS builds, commissions and connects its ARC plant to the grid possibly in the 2030s. Nuclear fission, the type of reactor power currently in operation throughout the world, uses the energy released from splitting of nuclei to create power generation, while fusion experiments are using lasers to create reactions forming a larger nuclei from the combination of smaller ones. The theory behind fusion is bringing to human scale the same force powering the sun, but no commercially viable work has been achieved other than experimental breakthroughs by the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other entities globally.

Full report : Google has committed to a 200-MW offtake agreement with nuclear fusion firm Commonwealth Fusion Systems from its first-ever power plant.

For more see the OODA Company Profile on Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Thea Energy.