At least two Bay Area startups are working on nuclear fusion

There are at least two Bay Area startups that are working on developing technologies related to nuclear fusion, but it could be decades before those efforts pay off.

Nuclear fusion, which harnesses the energy released when certain light atoms combine to form a heavier one, has the potential to become a sustainable replacement for conventional sources of energy like power plants that run on coal or other fossil fuels and even existing nuclear power, which releases energy from atom-splitting fission. 

Fusion has been an elusive scientific quest for decades, but now scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility have demonstrated in an experiment that they were able to produce more energy than lasers used — a major breakthrough.

It will certainly take years —most likely decades — for the process to become commercially viable, though exactly how long it will take is up for debate.

Cambridge University nuclear engineer Tony Roulstone told NPR that we might not see fusion become a practical energy source for at least 40 to 50 more years.

Tammy Ma is more optimistic about the timeline. She is a plasma physicist and leads research at the Lawrence Livermore lab's National Ignition Facility where the breakthrough took place.

"I do hope it's sooner than that," Ma told me, noting that solar and wind energy have taken two to three decades each to become mainstream and cost-effective sources of renewable energy.

Ma agreed that the next steps towards viability includes scaling the technology to produce faster reactions, as well as building new power plants.

As a publicly funded research facility, the Lawrence Livermore facility is able to conduct largescale, expensive fusion experiments but private sector companies also have a role to play in the industry, Ma said.

"They bring agility and innovation and many of them are going after the fusion engine, the core of the fusion production," Ma said. Private companies are also able to scale technology in a way that public institutions can't.

"They also bring the will to transfer the technology," Ma said. "At the (Lawrence Livermore) lab, new ideas can get caught in the 'valley of death'… it really does often take a private company that can say, 'we know how to make money off the technology.' And they have been active in talking to utilities" about what end customers might need from fusion power plants.

Here are two Bay Area startups that are working in the fusion industry: