Madison in the running for next-gen fusion energy research facility

A new nuclear fusion research site could be coming to the Madison area.

Kieran Furlong, co-founder and CEO or Madison-based Realta Fusion, said Wisconsin is among the “final two states” for a new research and development facility, which would entail “hundreds of millions” of dollars in capital investment and 200 or more jobs.

A final decision on the location is expected by the end of summer, but Furlong said a Madison-area facility would offer several advantages to the company.

“Madison has a lot to offer. We’re already here. We can maintain our velocity. There’s a talent pool at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is minting newly graduating plasma physicists and engineers of all stripes and shades,” Furlong said. “Those are some of the plus points for Madison, but we haven’t definitively selected our location yet.”

Jaymes Langrehr, spokesperson for Madison’s planning, community and economic development department, said the city has discussed potential tax increment financing assistance for a location at the former Oscar Mayer factory site but noted “nothing has been finalized” and “conversations are ongoing.”

“The Common Council would need to approve any potential TIF agreement if one is reached,” Langrehr said. “Madison only provides TIF assistance when a proposed development would not occur without that assistance.”

The planned investment would represent a significant step forward for Realta, which currently employs around 40 people. The new facility would allow the firm to build on the research it’s currently sponsoring in the UW-Madison Physical Sciences Department WHAM machine — a prototype plasma fusion device.

“That machine is as big as budget would allow,” Furlong said. “The next step for us is to go larger — essentially to scale up to what would be commercial-scale plasmas and build a machine that’s fully designed by Realta and operated by Realta within a Realta R&D facility.”

That new facility would be called “The Realta Forge.” There, researchers would trial-run larger components of a potential commercial-scale nuclear fusion plant that would generate energy by essentially bouncing high energy particles in plasma “back and forth between large magnets,” in Furlong’s words. Furlong told the Cap Times in 2024 that Realta aims to build a prototype for its approach by 2028 and have a pilot plant up and running “within a decade.”

“We want to prove out some of those technologies, and then the control systems for the plasma as well,” he said.

Nuclear fusion differs from conventional nuclear fission reactions in key ways. Fusion generates energy through two atoms slamming together to form a heavier atom, while fission produces energy by splitting larger atoms. That difference makes fusion a “failsafe technology,” according to Furlong, and the company plans to include safety measures at its new facility ranging from a concrete bunker and radiation shielding to monitoring employees’ and environmental health.

“We’re using a very tiny amount of mass that’s the fuel at any one point in time. The difficulty with fusion has actually been to get the reaction going and then to keep it going,” Furlong said. “If we lose control of the plasma at some point, it literally just will cool down and instantly stop, so it’s a failsafe technology. … This is very different from having a conventional nuclear fusion power plant anywhere nearby.”

Wisconsin has become a hub for fusion energy companies, with firms including Realta, the Madison-based Type One Energy and Janesville-based SHINE Technologies all calling the state home. Locally, the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce made expanding fusion research a plank in its 2026-2028 “advocacy agenda” as part of a broader effort to make the area a leader in “the next generation” of “deep tech” like quantum computing.

“Being the place where fusion takes hold is important because it’s part of the future,” Chamber President Zach Brandon said at an event last week. “But also, if you think about us as a state — we have no oil, we have no gas, no natural gas, we have no coal, and so we import billions of dollars of energy into our communities in order to run our businesses, operate our cars — fusion could be our foothold.”

State leaders have also made a play to make Wisconsin a major hub for nuclear fusion research. Gov. Tony Evers signed a sales and use tax exemption for fusion equipment and “other project inputs” for nuclear fusion energy projects last month after the bill passed with broad bipartisan support.

Furlong said UW-Madison’s status as a top research facility for plasma physics, coupled with the state’s history of manufacturing, add to the appeal of a potential Wisconsin facility.

“This could be a massive jobs engine, powering a manufacturing renaissance. Fusion could be one of the massive manufacturing industries of the 21st century, and Wisconsin is extremely well placed to avail of that,” Furlong said. “I think the state is taking the right steps to try and nurture and seed that industry here in Wisconsin and not have it develop somewhere else.”

Growth in the private fusion energy industry, which has raised $10 billion in funding so far, according to Furlong, could pay dividends by reducing reliance on energy sources like oil and natural gas.

“We should be seeing a bigger investment from the private sector into the development of fusion energy, because it will be a massive game changer once we get it out there,” Furlong said.