Pacific Fusion builds $1B fusion campus in Albuquerque

At a site outside Albuquerque, workers are assembling a machine meant to prove commercial fusion power can work. Pacific Fusion is building a $1 billion research and manufacturing campus at Mesa del Sol. It was first announced last year and is now visibly under construction. The campus will house the company's Demonstration System. It's aimed at reaching net facility gain, producing more fusion energy than the whole system consumes, by 2030.

Fusion works by fusing atoms together. That's the same reaction that powers the sun. It releases enormous energy without the meltdown risk or long-lived waste. Today's nuclear plants split atoms apart instead, and carry both risks. Many companies are racing toward the same milestone. Each is trying to prove a fusion system can produce more energy than it takes to run. Pacific Fusion says its own approach is meant to make fusion power cheaper to build. The finished campus is expected to employ roughly 200 people.

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Will Pacific Fusion actually hit net facility gain by 2030? That's still four years out, and no company has proven a fusion system can do that at commercial scale. Even a successful demonstration wouldn't put fusion power on the grid right away. It would mean the concept finally has a real, working example to build from.