Zap Energy’s “Z-pinch” chamber system, in a computer model above, fuses deuterium isotopes, creating energy from that.
Animation stillframe photo from Zap Energy
EVERETT — In addition to the bustle of plane production and engineering at Boeing, Everett now has two companies pursuing a new growing industry: nuclear fusion.
Helion and Zap Energy both are working to generate electricity using nuclear fusion at a feasible scale for consumers.
Unlike nuclear fission used in today’s nuclear plants, which splits uranium atoms to create energy, fusion generates electricity by combining hydrogen and helium to create energy. The energy is released from the change of mass resulting from the combination of atoms. Resulting particles are neutrons and isotopes — or versions — of helium and hydrogen.
Helion performs nuclear fusion using incredibly strong magnets to combine atoms, and Zap Energy uses its “Z-pinch,” where a lightning-bolt-like line of plasma conducts electric current, which creates an inward pressure, causing a hydrogen isotope called deuterium to fuse.
“Everyone knows right now that the biggest thing that is driving a lot of what’s happening in our economy is energy, and right now, we don’t have enough of it,” Jessie Barton, a Helion spokesperson, said. “Fusion is the solution that can really answer that problem, because it’s clean, it’s reliable, and it’s abundant.”
Compared to other forms of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, fusion provides the most amount of energy per unit of mass. Because of this, it will also take up less space than a solar farm, for example, when adapted to distribute energy throughout communities.
While continuing to test and create fusion prototypes, both Zap Energy and Helion are also working to create nuclear power plants.
“There are some advantages that you have in having a power plant,” Eric Meier, head of theory and modeling at Zap Energy, said. “(With) concentrated power, you don’t have to use a grid to distribute the power. If you have a fusion power plant next to a big industrial park that’s making steel and other products that require a lot of energy, you can just provide the power right there without a big solar panel footprint somewhere in the world.”
Nuclear fusion is also safer than fission since it deals with significantly fewer radioactive materials and keeps the millions of degrees of heat needed for the process contained.
“Any kind of meltdown is not possible with fusion, because you never have enough fuel in one place at any one time for that to happen,” Meier said.
City of Everett economic development director Dan Eernissee said he views the climate crisis as not only a significant part of the public’s lives, but also as an opportunity for businesses to thrive. He also described how the fusion companies brought their employees to Everett, which has driven the local economy.
“I think what’s happening in Everett (with fusion) should give the world a sense of hope,” Eernissee said.
The two companies are headquartered in the area near Paine Field. They’re among the 30 or more companies internationally pursuing the same end goal of producing nuclear fusion.
Although Everett’s economy has seen benefits since the foundation of Helion in 2013 and Zap Energy in 2018, the timeline of deploying the technology is still unclear despite both companies continuing to reach milestones with their prototypes and research.
“I mean fusion sort of seems inevitable to me when I think about … ‘how are humans going to be powering things in the future?’” Meier said. “The question is whether we can get it online. Let’s say five to 10 years as an extremely aggressive time scale, or 50 to 150 years as a more, relaxed time scale. So I think somewhere in there it’s, it’s going to happen.”
In 2024, Earth’s temperature breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for the first time ever. This limit was set by global governments to avoid a threshold scientists believe would trigger intensely harmful impacts of climate change, especially for marginalized communities across the world.
Nuclear fusion could mean a large decrease in carbon emissions when implemented globally according to the U.S. Department of Energy, offering a solution to lower the global rise in temperatures by curbing dependency on fossil fuels. However, given the uncertainty of when the technology will become part of the energy grid, nuclear fusion’s benefits as a climate solution may not be timely enough if global emissions and temperatures continue to rise.
