Livermore Could Host Billion-Dollar Fusion Energy Research Facility

LIVERMORE, CA — Livermore may host a billion-dollar fusion power research facility.

Pacific Fusion, a Bay Area company founded in 2023, is proposing building the facility on a 12 to 15-acre site just south of Jack London Boulevard and Livermore Municipal Airport, according to its website. It would conduct world-class research in fusion energy, a developing science that aims to harness the process of joining light atoms together. If the science is ever realized at commercial scale, it would provide limitless, pollution-free energy that does not produce any nuclear waste. Fusion is the same process that powers the sun and other stars.

Livermore is already a center of fusion energy research. In 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory made international headlines by producing more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it, an elusive goal known as "net energy gain."

"Ignition allows us to replicate for the first time certain conditions that are found only in the stars and the sun,'' then Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a Washington news conference. "This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon abundant fusion energy powering our society.''

The new Livermore research facility would not produce power - it would simply be the first research facility dedicated exclusively to fusion energy research that complies with all CalOSHA and California Department of Public Health regulations. Pacific Fusion estimates that the facility would create roughly 250 new jobs.

Pacific Fusion is hosting a free town hall on Thursday where residents can ask questions and voice feedback on the new facility. City staff will be in attendance.

The meeting will take place Thursday from 6-8 p.m. in the lecture hall of Building 2400 at Las Positas College on 3000 Campus Hill Drive. See here to register.

Visit livermore.pacificfusion.com for more information.