The Department of Energy’s fusion programs need to be reorganized and funded at higher levels to ensure that China does not win a race to commercialize the technology, industry leaders warned House lawmakers Thursday.
Fusion energy, which uses the same reaction that powers the sun and stars, has never been demonstrated at scale but is garnering unprecedented amounts of private investment after technological advances over the past three years. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told the BBC last week that fusion would provide electricity within 15 years — a feat that could transform the grid and slash emissions if it occurred.
But at a House Science subcommittee hearing Thursday, industry leaders said that China has spent three times as much as the U.S. on fusion since 2022 and is in position to win a competition to deploy the world’s first fusion power plant.
“The next decade of fusion breakthroughs and scientific discovery is going to happen in China, not in the U.S., with the investments I am seeing,” said Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is aiming to build a fusion power plant in Virginia by the early 2030s.
