In the news: The Wall St. Journal reports that America’s largest steel company is betting nuclear fusion can help it eliminate carbon emissions and power one of the world’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes.
Nucor and Helion Energy plan to develop a 500-megawatt fusion power plant by 2030 that would be placed at one of Nucor’s U.S. steel mills.
That amount is enough electricity to power a few hundred thousand homes, about as much as a conventional power plant. Nucor is investing $35 million in Helion, which is backed by OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman.
Why it matters: The agreement shows how Nucor and many other manufacturers are desperate for clean electricity to make greener products but are limited by a lack of abundant wind and solar power.
Many green steelmaking techniques require immense power, creating a need for energy sources such as fusion that address some of the limitations of today’s renewable and battery technologies.
Fusion powers the sun and has the potential to provide vast amounts of carbon-free power if someone can figure out how to harness it on Earth. No company has proved it can get more energy out of fusion than it takes to create it, and most experts think commercial fusion remains decades away.
Money has poured into fusion following a long-awaited breakthrough in December when Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said it had produced more energy from fusion than was delivered through lasers to drive the reaction.