Fusion Milestone: Radioactive Materials and Emissions Licenses Granted for Helion Project

Health regulators in the state of Washington have approved several critical licenses that could move work forward on a planned nuclear fusion project in Chelan County.

Fusion developer Helion, which is based in nearby Everett, announced it has secured two nuclear-focused licenses from the Washington Department of Health. The WDOH has granted both a Radioactive Materials License (RML) and Radioactive Air Emissions License (RAEL) for Helion’s planned Orion production site.

Helion says these are the first-ever of these types of licenses granted for a nuclear fusion project in the world and shows a commitment to safety standards for the technology. Important editor’s note is that no actual nuclear fusion generation has been proved commercially viable yet and all successes have been on the research level.

Nonetheless, Helion has broken ground on its Orion site. The company hopes to begin creating fusion-generated energy at Orion by 2028 under a long-time power purchase agreement with Microsoft as the customer and Constellation Energy as the power marketer.

“We are extremely proud to be granted these licenses from the Washington DOH, making us the first company in the world with the regulatory approvals in place for fusion power plant operations,” said David Kirtley, CEO of Helion Energy, in a statement. “We have a long history of working with the DOH to license our previous fusion activities. Today’s announcement represents the rigor of that work and opens the door for practical, commercial, safe fusion power.”

Nuclear fission—which splits atoms to create energy and heat—has been part of the electricity generation equation for many decades. Fission technology powers 94 generation units in the U.S. and accounts for nearly 20% of the nation’s utility-scale electricity resource.

Fusion holds promise of vast amounts of carbon-free energy by utilizing the same process that powers the sun. In man-made experimental testing facilities, confining and fusing a plasma is attempted using deuterium, tritium and other elements to generate tremendous heat.

Controlling and converting that to manageable and net energy gain has proven difficult although research and development are making advances. Earlier this year, Helion reported that its Polaris fusion prototype achieved 150 million degrees Celsius (150MºC) in plasma temperature during tests. Helion says this is the highest ever for a privately developed fusion energy machine, although U.S. national labs such as Lawrence Livermore and global collaborative projects may have done so.

Polaris is Helion's seventh fusion prototype reactor. The company has set its valuation at about $15.5 billion after a $465 million Series G funding round announced earlier this month.

Once and if ever commercially operational, Helion has a transmission system agreement in place with Chelan County Public Utility District.

The state’s DOH is the licensing body for fusion power in Washington, following federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission rulemaking to regulate nuclear fusion under a byproduct material framework, which is akin to regulations of particle accelerators and hospital nuclear than nuclear fission reactors.

“Leading radioactive regulatory oversight for the fusion industry in Washington state is an honor and is essential to protecting public health while advancing clean energy,” Jill Wood, director of the Department of Health’s Office of Radiation, said in the statement.

Last year’s Fusion Science and Technology (FS&T) Roadmap developed and released by the U.S. Department of Energy calls for a long-term strategy hoping to achieve commercial success and grid connection by the mid-2030s. DOE also announced $134 million in funding for fusion development programs.

“The Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap brings unprecedented coordination across America's fusion enterprise,” said Energy Department Under Secretary for Science Dr. Darío Gil, in a statement. “For the first time, DOE, industry, and our National Labs will be aligned with a shared purpose—to accelerate the path to commercial fusion power and strengthen America’s leadership in energy innovation.”

The FS&T Roadmap strategy proposes three drivers for fusion commercialization: Building critical infrastructure to close fusion materials and technology gaps; advanced research, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence; nurturing the U.S. fusion ecosystem through public and private partnerships, regional manufacturing hubs and workforce development.