China is moving at incredible frequency to become the world’s first to use nuclear integration as a source of income. With the scheduled completion of the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology ( CRAFT ) in Hefei Province in 2025, China will possess a unique scientific and engineering infrastructure for its fusion effort.
A crucial middle stage, the Burning Plasma Test Reactor, will be operational in 2027, while a prototype integration energy plant, the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor, is currently being developed. China’s South fusion reactor holds the record for blood confinement, and other essential integration tests are in progress in various locations of the state.
One may avoid asking: Where is the US in light of the steady stream of good integration reports coming from China. Due mainly to the terrible lack of commitment from the Federal government, the US is in danger of losing the earth leadership position in integration which it had occupied for almost three-quarters of a decade.
Given all the talk about maintaining the US’ technological advantage in relation to China, this is nothing less than a controversy. Fortunately for the US, personal market investments in integration have grown considerably, and US private companies are moving forward with a variety of optimistic and encouraging projects aimed at achieving corporate power generation by fusion in the not-too-distant future.
We emailed the Fusion Industry Association ( FIA ) CEO Andrew Holland for his opinion on the state of fusion in the US and China. The FIA has established itself as the words of the secret fusion market worldwide.
The most recent meeting was a follow-up to the one that Asia Times released in three episodes in January 2021. Asia Times Senior Science editor Jonathan Tennenbaum conducted the interview.
Contact: In your White Paper,” Bringing Fusion to the US Grid,” you argued that the US government should make a significant change in integration R&, D prioritization. And you compare the lack of sufficient aid by the US government to fusion with China’s optimistic fusion program, which is moving away quickly. How would you contrast the US’s merging efforts with what are happening in China?
AH: The US has been a world leader in integration since the very beginning of integration research by institutions back in the ‘ 50s. The United States has always been the leader in pushing forward studies, starting with blood physics, and therefore looking at how to build a fusion power break-even power plant, first working with the UK and then working with Japan and Europe.
China has not been a participant in that until the next 20 years or so. When China joined the ITER ( International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor ) program more than 20 years ago, China began investing to advance China to world leadership status. Investments in research, into facilities and even into individuals – blood physicists and the institutions that are important to educate them and to build and run experiments.
This occurred at a time when the global system was viewed as being largely transparent. A lot of the leading Chinese scientists have done work in US and European labs and Japanese labs. Collaboration has existed for a long time, both in ITER and elsewhere.
The US program on fusion has always been ambitious, but perhaps lacking in funding to allow follow through, is what I would say. A few things, in my opinion, need to be said.
For seven straight years now, Congress has appropriated more money every year into the Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Science Program. So there has been a rise in funding for fusion, sometimes in significant jumps, sometimes in relatively small jumps.
Along with that has come new legal authorizations, directing the Department of Energy to create not only a fusion science program but a program that has the mission of delivering fusion energy-delivering a pilot plant. There has been a slow inclination toward commercialization.
Unfortunately, the US program is pretty heavy on legacy-funded programs. There is a saying in [ Washington ] DC that the DOE spends a lot of money on on certain mortgages each year, which account for a sizable portion of that funding.
These programs are focused largely on legacy R&, D programs, rather than forward-thinking commercially relevant programs. Given that the majority of the program and budget goes toward paying for these mortgages, it’s very difficult to say that we’re transitioning a DOE program.
Spending on these programs may be important for many reasons, like basic science and understanding of plasma physics, but really aren’t that important for the actual commercialization of fusion energy.
The Department of Energy has also authorized and begun a number of new programs. Notable among them are public-private partnerships, like the INFUSE ( Innovation Network for Fusion Energy ) program and the milestone-based public-private partnership.
Additionally, there is a brand-new initiative called Fusion Innovative Research Engine ( FIRE ) Collaboratives, which are research centers that are focused on pressing commercialization issues like the fuel cycle and materials. But the actual funding for these programs is still a smaller percentage than the legacy programs. So far, this transition has not been seen.
Now, China isn’t bound by these legacy programs nearly as much, and has been able to make investments focused towards building a commercialization program.
In essence, if you look at the US in the late 20s and early 20s, there was a request from the then Undersecretary for Science, Paul Dabbar, to the fusion community, asking them to “give me a community plan for what the fusion program should do.” Everybody should come together, and give us the consensus”. They succeeded, too.
The result was a long-range plan, delivered very early in 2021, that laid out the steps and programs and investments that needed to be made, to start to deliver a fusion pilot plant. The US National Academy of Sciences released their own report shortly after, stating that this is what you need to do to deliver a pilot plant.
Ironically, in fact, that’s about the same time that the Fusion Industry Association ( FIA ) was officially formed. In May 2021, we established ourselves as an independent organization. Then, in March of 2022, the White House hosted a fusion summit and declared what they call a Bold Decadal Vision for commercial fusion.
Therefore, the US government and the US fusion community have a plan for what they need to do to launch a pilot fusion power plant and commercialize fusion energy. The challenge is, that the actual budget of the Fusion Energy Science Program has basically not changed at all.
The truth is that we already have all the plans in place, and we only need to put them into practice. We need Congress to fund the money. The President needs to request the necessary funds to accomplish the task. And then you turn around and look across the Pacific to China.
A new facility, which they are calling CRAFT, is about to be finished. This is basically a place where they put all the fusion test stands together. All the projects listed in the long-range plan for the US are being constructed right now or have already been finished, but in China!  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,
Nothing new has been released from the US program in the interim. It is difficult to see how this is moving forward. However, the reality is that the US government is not at the center of the ambition. The ambition in the United States is with the private companies. Private companies are still making progress. Funding is flowing into these companies.
Although the US government doesn’t have much funding, significant funding is being poured into these businesses from investors, venture capitalists, and strategic investors. The growing, American-led industry is basically a testament to the power of the American capitalist system that I think we could be on the verge of getting there. This has been observed before.
JT: In China, the government is evidently committed to a real battle plan for fusion. As you pointed out, this is not only happening on paper, but the Chinese are also creating new structures. That was the way the US used to do things in the’ 50s and ‘ 60s in practically every field of science and technology. The idea was to simply go ahead and build a lot of things and see what works. What has happened to that spirit?
AH: I don’t believe it’s gone. I think it’s just lost from the United States government. Take a look at Commonwealth Fusion Systems for an example if you are talking about building things.
They are building a demonstration-class tokamak in Devens, Massachusetts, right now. Look at Helion, which is building their demonstration machine called Polaris in Everett, Washington, just north of Seattle. Zap Energy, in the same area, is testing their FuZE-Q machine right now. I could list a number of more businesses that are currently developing.
So there’s no shortage of building in fusion happening now in the private sector. In fact, we even see the charitable sector getting involved. MIT has found a number of philanthropic investors who want to invest in building a cyclotron that can function as a user facility for the fusion industry to test materials on. This is occurring largely without the US government’s assistance.
JT: Apart from the need to increase its scandalously low fusion budget, what things should the US government be doing now? What connection does this have to the work of the private sector?
AH: If the US wants to secure its leadership, certain things need to happen. The necessary infrastructure must be created for a commercialization program. What that means is that you need to build materials test stands, you need to build fuel cycle test centers, and so on.
Both the government and private industry must have access to the government’s built-in user facilities. A good example is in the aerospace industry: the government builds the wind tunnels and then industry comes in, and pays for access to those facilities. According to classical economics, the government’s failure to intervene would result in underinvestment of these public goods.
The second thing the government should be doing, but hasn’t been nearly enough, is to be investing in the companies directly, to help them move towards the goal of fusion pilot plants. This actually acts as a catalyst. Public-private partnerships enable companies to secure investment, to secure more private dollars.
Government funding has the same effect in a field as fusion that is ambitious. Investors still think that, ah, this is a wildly uncertain area. However, if the government says that we’re investing directly in this company, that seal of approval indicates that it is worthwhile to do so.
This is a real way to accelerate investment into fusion pilot plants. Governments around the world have realized that other nations will invest if they don’t support investment in new technologies.
The CHIPS Act, providing$ 54 billion dollars of funding to build new semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the United States, was adopted because other countries had subsidized this industry so much that it would have taken this strategic industry away from the United States.
There is nothing, in my opinion, more strategic than fusion. This is zero-carbon energy without a scarce fuel source, something that can deal with energy security and deal with our problems of scientific leadership right away. Any government should want to lead and not only have this strategic industry in their nation.
The United States has put really good plans in place. That’s something I want to be clear about. The milestone-based public-private partnership is a really good program. Really good is the INFUSE program. But the amount of money is so small that it really is not impactful to any decision-making by companies at this point.
JT: Why isn’t fusion given more of a priority? Is the problem on the level of bureaucratic thinking?
AH: Unless there is a push from the top, the status quo predominates over any change in politics and government.
JT: Well, that brings me to a central question. Everyone is now referring to China as the United States’ number one strategic rival or even adversary, and people are becoming more aware that China is on the verge of outperforming the United States in many respects.
The Chinese government has clearly identified fusion as a key strategic area, and China clearly aims to get there first, in terms of realizing a fusion pilot plant and developing a commercial fusion industry. I believe that should prompt the US to declare that we had better get moving because the Chinese will defeat us. But apparently, that message has not yet gotten through.
AH: Well, it’s all about timing in Washington, even if it has passed. You shouldn’t expect major new programs at the end of a president’s four-year term. When there is a divided government versus when there is a unified government, it’s all about.
I expect that in 2025, there will be new pushes for legislation from Congress to bolster America’s competitive position vis-à-vis China and the rest of the world. The Trump Administration wants to shake up and reshape the world and perpetuate it.
The United States is not a place where things happen linearly. Things move only occasionally. At the beginning of the Biden administration, there was the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, followed by the CHIPS and Science Act, followed by the Inflation Reduction Act, all of which amounted to an extraordinary amount of funding going into high-tech and energy fields. However, what actually went into fusion was merely a cash donation to support the construction of ITER in the South of France.  ,
New competitiveness funding is what we’re pushing for and anticipate seeing in the new Congress in 2025. And we hope that fusion will be part of that.
We have a strategy. We’ve put forward a$ 3 billion supplemental funding request, and we think there is a case that it should be expanded up to a$ 5 or$ 10 billion supplemental funding request. This money is not intended to be used to build fusion infrastructure and support public-private partnerships in fusion, which are the primary sources of funding for annual appropriations.
JT: Let me bring up the China issue once more, in terms of manpower. According to what I saw, China has ten times as many PhDs in fusion science and engineering as the US. Shouldn’t that be a signaI for rethinking in the US?
China once relied on West Indian students to provide the majority of its top-level skills and knowledge. Those times are gone. China now produces its own elite fusion scientists and engineers at a much higher rate than the US. Shouldn’t the US be concerned about that, if the US wants to retain its leading position?
AH: I actually don’t worry about that issue. The workforce issue is a market issue. And if there is a market pull, we’ll find the workers for it. That’s the great benefit of the American system, the combination of government, philanthropic universities and private sector working together.
I believe there is a reason why the US holds the top spot in higher education, with the country having the most than one in the top 100 universities. US universities are market-oriented, so they listen to what the students want, and make the investments.
At the top level, I worry more. The top level of government funding is just not there. And so we could convince these universities to fund PhD plasma physicists ‘ employment in the UK or Germany. That’s more what I worry about.
JT: What has happened to the US national laboratories, which were formerly conducting fusion research? It seems that hardly any new experiments are being built there.
The national labs are the pinnacle of American science, according to AH. They are the ones that get the funding from DOE. The General Atomics DIII-D facility, which is essentially a national lab-class facility, receives the majority of the$ 800 million fusion budget.
I want to be clear that the national labs are doing really important science. However, we must witness the transition from science to science for the sake of commercialization.
If you look at a pie chart of where the$ 800 million DOE funding for Fusion Energy Sciences goes, the largest chunk,$ 240 million goes to ITER. The 30-year-old Tokamak run by General Atomics is DIII-D, which is the next-largest. It does really important science. Although it is not a brand-new machine, it does have excellent diagnostics. It’s not breaking new ground.
The National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade ( NSTX-U) experiment from Princeton Plasma Physics Lab is the next-largest experiment.
JT: The NSTX is quite an old facility.
AH: They intend to reopen an upgraded facility for experiments next year, but we haven’t been able to do so for nearly a decade.
So if you look at those three facilities I just mentioned, that’s the bulk of the DOE fusion budget. However, commercialization-focused programs must include the construction of the fusion infrastructure I mentioned earlier. We need to make investments in both.
Now, I’d like it if there was” a rising tide that lifts all boats.” If we had a billion-dollar program or more in the Fusion Energy Sciences, then we could do all of these things.
We anticipate seeing really good science emerge from NSTX-U, and there is still good science emerging from DIII-D. But it’s not clear to us that this is better than the science that will come out of the private sector, where companies are building the next generation of these machines.  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,
JT: Are you thinking of an analogous process to the commercialization of space flight, with the transfer from NASA to SpaceX and other private companies?
AH: This is exactly what.
In 2006 NASA was looking to replace the space shuttle for access to the International Space Station. They had a plan, known as the Constellation and Orion programs, to build rockets to transport astronauts from Earth to Mars and back to Earth. A small group within NASA said, well, there are private space companies coming up, SpaceX and others.
No one initially believed they could ever accomplish this, but NASA responded,” OK, here’s$ 500 million, let’s do a public-private partnership with them.” They called the project COTS, Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, which aimed to develop private spacecraft to take deliveries, and ultimately astronauts, to the International Space Station.  ,
The NASA COTS program invested directly into SpaceX in a milestone-based format. That leaves SpaceX with no money after hitting milestones. The ultimate milestone, of course, was delivering an astronaut to the International Space Station. However, they also reached a number of agreements and negotiated.
Finally, of course, SpaceX did succeed, and now they’re able to do it for 10 times less than what NASA had originally planned to spend. So we’re currently at the same point in fusion, with a milestone-based public-private partnership program that is the equivalent of the NASA COTS program.
They put it in place, but the government hasn’t given it even half of what it needs. To date, only$ 46 million has been allocated to companies. And when they finish it the following year, we anticipate another$ 40 million to be added to the budget for this year. But to be impactful, you need to add a zero to those numbers. You require a larger order of magnitude.
We think that the milestone-based program is the way that the United States is going to get to its fusion pilot plants. It’s done in the traditional American way. It’s your private sector and your public sector working together in partnership. The risk is taken by the private sector. The public sector supplies the infrastructure know-how. It’s a really creative way to go about it.
JT: Coming back to China, how would you characterize their effort and what do you think are the most important projects they have coming online?
You said it appears like there is a government plan. China is not the Soviet Union. There appears to be some internal competition going on, and it has evolved into something different from the traditional command-top-down economy. There are private companies involved. ENN, Startorus Fusion, and Energy Singularity are three private fusion companies in China that we are aware of.
There’s probably more, but those are the ones that have been significantly funded and are doing important work as of now. Energy Singularity is the one who is currently creating a tokamak using high-temperature superconductor magnets, essentially following a similar blueprint to what Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the US is building. The other two companies are looking towards other varieties of tokamaks.
Therefore, there is a more financially successful private sector approach. And then there is a government program. However, state-owned enterprises are also supported by the central government in China, Beijing, and other central government entities. They have created a new China Fusion Corporation that looks to be a delivery vehicle for what they are calling BEST– the Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak.
This is a classic low-temperature superconductor device rather than a high-temperature superconducting tokamak, but it will also be an ITER-class machine that will achieve fusion break-even. They are building it right now in Hefei, in Anhui province, not far from the CRAFT platform, the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology.
What’s interesting is that, if you look at the company registrations and funding, a sizable portion of the funding for this government program has actually come from private investors. Leading among these is the electric vehicle company NIO.
We’ve looked into Chinese public company records, and it appears that the NIO is at least partially funding the building of BEST, but it’s not clear who is funding China Fusion Corporation. To be clear, I haven’t actually talked to them and I don’t know and of that for sure.
Because China is a different system than it was ten years ago, it is difficult to say for sure about any of this. It’s not as open. Having said that, Chinese scientists, working for both public and private companies, are actively involved in international fusion conferences around the world. They’re there to learn and they are there to share their details.
Some details are still ambiguous, though. There was an announcement late last year of the formation of a China Fusion Corporation, a press release , was put out by the China National Nuclear Corporation. However, that press release was removed from the Internet within a day or two. I have an English language translation, but you can’t get the source anymore.
JT: Do you see a national security perspective in the race to build a pilot fusion power plant in light of all the talk about China as a strategic rival of the US?
AH: Any concentrated source of electric power that doesn’t rely on energy resources from an unstable world is national security related.
JT: What if China were to win the race for fusion energy commercialization?
AH: If the Chinese get to fusion first, we shouldn’t expect that this would just be a pure market-based approach. We should anticipate that China will use its newly established position of authority in global geopolitics. We should expect that they will use it throughout their Belt and Road partner nations, further tying them into a centralized, Beijing-led whole order.
Fusion is therefore more than just something the United States should do because it benefits both the environment and the economy. Examples from other industries show that China will take this and make it central to their global effort to put China at the center of the global geopolitical order.
JT: Would you draw a comparison to the attempt to reach the Moon?
AH: It’s similar in that we’re seeing a global race and multiple players work towards something very technologically challenging. However, I must say that although going to the Moon was and is an extraordinary achievement, it has a much greater impact on the day-to-day lives of the people living in your country if you can produce power without emissions and without relying on potentially hostile external sources.