POWAY, Calif. (KGTV) – San Diego County could be getting a new facility to create more nuclear fusion energy.
“This will be the first facility of its kind, certainly at its scale for doing qualification of engineering human-scale prototypes,” Brian Grierson, Director of fusion energy technologies at General Atomics. “We are going to be creating a blank component testing facility.”
The potential facility would be to test systems that use lithium-based material, like the stuff in batteries, that line the inside of the chamber at the center of a nuclear fusion reactor to capture energy and produce the element needed to support fusion reactions.
“The fusion process releases a large amount of energy, and that is captured by a breeding blanket. And that blanket then turns that heat into electricity by turning steam turbines,” Grierson said.
But does that mean a nuclear energy facility like San Onofre will be in the middle of Poway? The answer is no.
“We are developing technologies such as materials, components, and coolants that would eventually be shipped offsite elsewhere and would eventually be installed in a fusion machine,” Grierson said.
Poway Mayor Steve Vaus, who also toured the site on Thursday, said it’s exciting that the city could play a role in renewable energy.
“So the fusion process is incredibly exciting because it's not the scary thing that fission is,” Vaus said. "It's on one hand about the heavy engineering, but it's also about hometown opportunities to think that we're looking at a future where our kids could come here and work at General Atomics and change the world, that's exciting.
General Atomics was recently awarded a $20 million tax credit from the state to build the facility.
Grierson tells me there are a couple more steps until the facility comes to Poway. But there’s hope for what it can bring for the future of fusion.
“It's an opportunity to capture this moment for the region and for organizations that are excited about moving fusion from the lab into the field,” Grierson said.
