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DTN 160: Fusion Company Applies to Join US Power Grid

Plus: Pentagon's drone spending spree, air taxis come to NYC, Zuck's virtual biology initiative, DeepSeek's new model, FDA wants to accelerate clinical trails with AI, and more.

01 May 2026 — 6 min read

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Fusion energy company Commonwealth applies to join a U.S. power grid—a first

“On Tuesday a fusion energy start-up announced that it has applied to join a U.S. power grid—a first that could one day see households and businesses powered by nuclear fusion.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is looking to join a power grid that is operated by PJM Interconnection and provides 182,000 megawatts of power to more than 67 million people living in 13 states and Washington, D.C. But technical hurdles to bringing fusion online remain—one major obstacle is actually producing a stable fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes.

The application process requires a potential energy provider to provide extensive technical information to the grid operator, including descriptions of the planned fuel type. In Commonwealth's case, the company is developing a tokamak reactor design that uses powerful magnetic fields to create and insulate a highly energetic cloud of particles called a plasma until it's hot enough for those particles to fuse. The promise of the device is that a fusion reaction could feasibly generate limitless clean energy.

Commonwealth plans to open its first power plant, called ARC (for "affordable, robust, compact"), in Virginia in the early 2030s. And the company aims to demonstrate an initial model, called SPARC (for "smallest possible ARC"), in 2027.” --Scientific American

Astrobotic's Chakram rotating-detonation rocket engine during a test at the Marshall Space Flight Center. Credit: Astrobotic

“Astrobotic, a developer of lunar landers and suborbital rockets, has successfully tested an advanced rocket engine that could power those vehicles.

The Pittsburgh-based company announced April 23 it has completed a series of tests of Chakram, a rotating-detonation rocket engine, or RDRE, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. In those tests, two engine prototypes fired for a combined 470 seconds, including a single 300-second burn.

An RDRE is an advanced engine technology where a detonation wave travels in a circle inside an engine at supersonic speeds. It promises higher performance than conventional engines, including increased specific impulse and thrust-to-weight ratios, but can be difficult to control. There have been many experiments in RDRE technology for spaceflight and hypersonic systems, but little flight experience.” (via Space News)