The first nuclear fusion power plant is making history – right here in Chelan County.

In 2025, a fusion research company known as Helion, started construction of the first commercial-use fusion power plant. Helion Energy is a fusion power startup whose headquarters is located in Everett, Washington. Helion is made up of almost 500 employees, and is run by CEO Dr. David Kirtley and Executive Chairman Sam Altman, with the latter being the CEO of OpenAI. Their goal is to lower the cost of nuclear fusion to actually match the cost of the power it generates.

Nuclear fusion is a kind of energy source, one that powers the sun. It happens when we merge two atoms and their nuclei, which creates electricity and power. Typically, the amount of energy released by this process takes a lot of work and costs and doesn’t balance out with the output of energy you get. However, Helion is using two kinds of fusion as one, which is theoretically much more efficient. Most nuclear power, usually fission instead of fusion, produces toxic nuclear waste when it is generated.

Helions’s new method would only produce small amount of non-radioactive waste from the process. The type of fusion being used here is called magneto-intertial fusion. If this type of nuclear fusion works, then this power plant could be the first step in a clean-energy filled future.

Last year, Helion started construction on Orion, the name of this new power plant. They plan to get the Orion up and running by 2028, and the first 50 megawatts of power are going right to Microsoft. Hopefully, companies will abandon the dwindling fossil fuels and toxic nuclear fission power plants, and this new form of cleaner energy will become the new normal for power sources in many years to come.