Billion-dollar machine aims to set a fusion-energy record — and study nuclear weapons

[Marlin]

Billion-dollar machine aims to set a fusion-energy record — and study nuclear weapons

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02620-3

[Core Content]

Pacific Fusion has begun construction on a facility designed to achieve net energy gain through pulsed power fusion technology. Located near a national nuclear weapons laboratory, the site will conduct research on both commercial fusion energy and the maintenance of the existing nuclear stockpile. The project utilizes impedance matched Marx generators to compress hydrogen fuel capsules for high energy output.

Pacific Fusion is breaking ground next door to a US nuclear-weapons laboratory, hoping the partnership will give it an edge.

A worker assembles a huge impedance-matched Marx generator, which will be used to send powerful electrical pulses to the heart of Pacific Fusion's machine. Credit: Pacific Fusion

A company has started to build a fusion machine that it hopes will be the first to generate more energy than it consumes, thanks to the use of immense pulses of electricity to squeeze capsules of hydrogen fuel. The billion-dollar facility, which will sit down the road from a major US nuclear-weapons laboratory, could also be used for research on the country's ageing stockpile of nuclear warheads.

Read the full article at nature.com:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02620-3?error=cookies_not_supported&code=7a11932e-3d95-4bc7-a1ae-931ee88b47ed