Helion just got the world’s first licences to run a fusion power plant

Helion has become the first company in the world licensed to operate a fusion power plant. On 16 June, the Washington-based firm said it had received two licences from the state’s Department of Health, clearing a regulatory bar no fusion company has reached before.

It is a real milestone. It is also a regulatory one, not a scientific one, and that distinction is the whole story.

The two licences, covering radioactive materials and radioactive air emissions, apply to Orion, the plant Helion is building in Malaga, Washington. The company says the site’s assembly and office buildings are finished, with earthwork on the generator building started this spring.

Why a health department licenses a power plant

The reason the approval came from Washington’s health department, not the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, matters. The NRC has decided to regulate fusion under its ‘byproduct material’ framework, the same one used for particle accelerators...

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