The Tennessee Valley Authority and the state of Tennessee are partnering with the United Kingdom on a new effort to accelerate fusion energy development.
TVA, the nation's largest public power provider, announced the partnership Sept. 14 as part of an effort to build the workforce, supply chains and regulatory framework needed to "support safe and rapid commercial scale-up."
It's the latest step in a global race to commercialize fusion, a process that relies on nuclear science, like fission, but has never reached the market. Knoxville-based Type One Energy is a key player as the leader of Project Infinity, an initiative to build what would be the world's first fusion power plant.
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Type One Energy is also a founding member of the U.K.'s Infinity Fusion Consortium, which formed in May with the goal of building the first privately led fusion power plant in the United Kingdom. The company, which regularly collaborates with TVA, published peer-reviewed papers in 2025 that said "no scientific barriers" exist to bring a fusion power plant online.
This story is being updated.
Mariah Franklin reports on technology and energy for Knox News. Email: mariah.franklin@knoxnews.com. Signal: mariahfranklin.01
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: A new Tennessee-U.K. partnership targets the next frontier in nuclear power
