Pacific Fusion Breaks Ground on New Facility in New Mexico
Pacific Fusion broke ground on August 25, 2026, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, aiming to achieve net facility gain in fusion power by 2030.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Pacific Fusion has broken ground on a new fusion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- The primary goal is to achieve net facility gain, generating more energy than consumed, by 2030.
- The system uses 156 pulser modules to create magnetic fields that compress pencil eraser-sized fuel targets.
Clean energy startup Pacific Fusion has taken a major step toward commercializing fusion power by breaking ground on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, for a new facility in New Mexico designed to generate as much energy as it consumes, marking a critical milestone for the industry.
Carrie von Muench, co-founder and chief operating officer at Pacific Fusion, told TechCrunch that the project represents a massive leap forward, noting that to their knowledge, no comparable facility is currently under construction anywhere in the United States.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
The core challenge in the sector has been achieving net facility gain, a milestone where a device generates enough power to offset all the energy consumed by the facility itself. While the National Ignition Facility has demonstrated controlled fusion reactions yielding more energy than the input laser beam, it remains far short of powering an entire campus.
The company aims to hit net facility gain by 2030, with an ultimate vision of operating a commercial power plant by the mid-2030s. Its commercial-scale reactor will need to produce roughly five times more energy than the demonstration system to accommodate the auxiliary equipment required by a working power plant.
"It’s a huge step forward for commercial fusion power. To our knowledge, there’s no such facility being constructed in the country."
Carrie von Muench
Located in Albuquerque, the new campus will test Pacific Fusion’s proprietary approach, which applies intense, tightly coordinated electrical pulses to generate a magnetic field around a fuel target roughly the size of a pencil eraser, squeezing it until the atoms fuse together.
Nuclear fusion represents the ultimate holy grail of clean energy, aiming to replicate the sun's power mechanism safely on Earth without long-lived radioactive waste. Pacific Fusion's rapid capital accumulation and modular engineering strategy highlight how private-sector funding is accelerating timelines that were previously restricted to state-backed national laboratories.
Keith LeChien, co-founder and chief technical officer, noted that the demonstration facility will fire a handful of shots per day, whereas a full-scale commercial plant will eventually need to execute one shot per second, driven by a bank of 156 pulser modules.
Source: TechCrunch
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