This company wants to turn a Tennessee coal plant into a fusion reactor
Type One energy has announced its intention to use a retired TVA coal plant site, the Bull Run Fossil Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as the site for a prototype fusion reactor with the hope to eventually commercialize fusion power – and maybe even find a neat way to use old EV batteries to help power the process.
The Bull Run Fossil Plant was a coal-powered generation facility first opened in 1967 and shut down on December 1, 2023 – just over two months ago. It was run by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the largest public utility in the US, and sits just across the river from Oak Ridge, the site of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), one of America’s most important national science labs.
Despite only being shut down for two months, claims are already being made on the site. Due to its close location to ORNL, a lab that has studied fusion since the 1950s, it seems a natural choice for another fusion experiment – enter Type One energy, a company looking to work toward the commercialization of fusion power.
Type One Energy ambitiously gets its name from Type I on the Kardashev scale, a theoretical measurement intended to describe how advanced a civilization is. A Type I civilization is able to harness all of the energy available on a single planet – currently, humanity’s total energy production is about three orders of magnitude, or a thousand times, below this benchmark.
So, just starting with the name, Type One’s goals seem… optimistic, to say the least.
What is fusion?
For a basic primer on what we’re talking about here, Nuclear Fusion differs significantly from Nuclear Fission. Fusion is the reaction that happens inside of stars like our Sun, whereas Fission is what powers current commercial nuclear reactors.
Fission, in current nuclear reactors, takes large, rare, radioactive atoms (like Uranium-235) and splits them apart, which releases energy when the bonds between neutrons in the nucleus of these atoms are broken. The major downside is that this reaction creates radioactive material, with nuclear waste still being an unsolved problem.
Fusion, however, works by taking smaller atoms and fusing them together. The most promising fusion reaction uses deuterium and tritium, two rare isotopes of hydrogen that have extra neutrons in their nuclei. Deuterium is rare, but still relatively easily found in normal seawater (about one in every 6,000 natural hydrogen atoms are deuterium), whereas tritium is almost nonexistent in nature and would be manufactured by splitting lithium atoms.
Incidentally, this is a potential use for lithium from old EV batteries.
When the deuterium and tritium atoms are fused together it creates a normal helium atom and releases a free neutron, from which energy can be harvested.
The upside of fusion is that it does not produce long-lived radioactive waste, and that it is incredibly energetic, with the amount of deuterium in 1 gallon of ordinary seawater (about half a milliliter of deuterium) theoretically able to generate the amount of energy from combusting 300 gallons of oil. Fusion reactors are also considered to be inherently safer as there is no possibility of a meltdown.
The downside is that fusion requires extremely difficult conditions to occur, and those conditions cost a lot of energy to maintain. You can get a hint of this by looking at the location where fusion naturally happens – at the center of stars, at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees and pressures of trillions of pounds per square inch.
The state of fusion today
So it sounds like a science fiction concept, and ever since it was first envisioned in the 1950s, it has been. Humanity has never been able to achieve a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it took to create… until recently.
You may have heard the news last year that scientists had achieved “net energy gain” from a fusion reaction. This means that more energy was released by the fusion reaction than the amount of energy from the lasers used to produce the temperatures needed. This is denoted by the symbol Q, with Q numbers above 1 meaning net energy gain. The current record is Q = 1.54.
But that’s not everything, because not all of that energy can be effectively harnessed, so in order to reach the point where fusion actually becomes viable for electricity generation, the reaction must create enough energy to become self-sustaining – as long as more deuterium/tritium fuel is added, the reaction will continue, much like adding more logs to an already-burning fireplace.
The primary technology advancement needed for the Type One facility is high-temperature superconducting magnets, which have generally seen remarkable progress in recent years and are now the focus of multiple companies working to adapt the basic technology for fusion energy applications. Given what is known from a scientific development standpoint, ORNL considers the step envisioned by Type One as reasonable and achievable. While success is not guaranteed, we view the risk-to-reward profile of this facility as appropriate. If successful, the results from this facility would provide a solid basis for a second-generation facility focused on energy production.
Mickey Wade, associate lab director of fusion and fission energy and science, ORNL
For a self-sustaining reaction, a ratio of about Q = 5 is thought to be necessary to reach the level of viability for electricity production. But once that milestone is reached, Q increases arbitrarily, because the self-sustaining nature of the reaction means that little to no energy will be needed to be spent externally to maintain the reaction.
Type One’s plans
Type One thinks it can reach this milestone, though probably not for years still – it sets the target at about a decade from now. As of now, it wants to build a prototype reactor it’s calling Infinity One at the Bull Run site, with the intent of “retiring risks” before building a future pilot power plant.
There are a number of other fusion reactors in the world, but most of them are from public institutions run by academic, governmental, or intergovernmental sources. There are a few other fusion startups, but Type One thinks that it will be the first private company to build a functional stellerator prototype. Fusion reactors come in two types: stellerators and tokamaks, with each having their advantages but tokamaks being more common.
Many of the company’s personnel have already been part of stellerator projects in other settings, so there is plenty of expertise associated – including CTO Dr. Thomas Sunn Pederson, who we spoke to for this story, who previously worked on the record-setting W7X stellerator in Germany.
The plan has been enough to get the company noticed by some government entities, with the Department of Energy choosing it as one of eight companies to receive part of $46 million in funding. Here’s the full list of those companies, six of which ORNL is also partnering with:
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems (Cambridge, MA)
- Focused Energy Inc. (Austin, TX)
- Princeton Stellarators Inc. (Branchburg, NJ)
- Realta Fusion Inc. (Madison, WI)
- Tokamak Energy Inc. (Bruceton Mills, WV)
- Type One Energy Group (Madison, WI)
- Xcimer Energy Inc. (Redwood City, CA)
- Zap Energy Inc. (Everett, WA)
Type One is also the first company to receive grants via a new Tennessee program to encourage innovation and investment in nuclear energy, and closed an investment seed round of $29 million last year.
As for involvement from TVA and ORNL, both entities are “collaborating” with Type One, but are a little more measured in their expectations than the company itself is.
TVA is a clean energy leader. With the retirement of Bull Run plant, TVA is in the unique position to partner with Type One and ORNL to explore the repurposing of a portion of the facility toward the advancement of fusion energy research. As TVA works to be net-zero by 2050, we must work together to identify potential clean energy technologies of the future. Being able to further the advancement of fusion energy research provides a win-win proposition for TVA and the people of the valley.
-TVA spokesperson
Despite Type One’s announcement today of its selection to pursue the use of TVA’s Bull Run site, TVA issues a reminder that the project is contingent on proper completion of necessary environmental reviews, permits, operating licenses and so on. While TVA has signed a memorandum of understanding with the company and with ORNL, it hasn’t yet formally agreed to lease part of the property to Type One. But it does see the unique opportunity to use a former coal for research into the future of energy, especially in a spot that’s so close to one of the centers of American fusion research at Oak Ridge labs.
Construction on the pilot research project could start as early as 2025, and be completed as early as 2028.
Electrek’s Take
This story interested me primarily due to the angle of turning a site that used to generate the dirtiest possible electricity into one that generates what would likely become the cleanest form of electricity, which is quite poetic.
And fusion energy, in particular, has incredible promise if it’s ever achieved. It could solve a tremendous amount of our societal problems – but like everything else, this only works if the benefits are properly distributed, and our current sociopolitical systems aren’t all that great at doing that.
But it could, at least, help to solve climate change, by offering a highly energetic energy source that also releases zero emissions, and has even fewer auxiliary impacts than other current clean energy sources (e.g. habitat disruption, panel/turbine recycling, and so on). And, relevant to Electrek, if lithium is needed to make tritium, then that gives us something we could use recycled EV batteries for, which is pretty cool.
But we also shouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves here, because it sounds like this project is in very early stages. Today’s press release is a pretty minor step – Type One is just announcing the site that it wants to use, which hasn’t even been secured yet. And while we had a great conversation with Type One, the responses we got from TVA and ORNL were much more noncommittal. So there was an excitement disconnect there, which is to be expected between a company and a government entity, but it still reminded us that all of this is still some ways off.
So there’s a lot of steps between here and fusion energy, and frankly, I think that the biggest breakthroughs in fusion are not likely to come from a private company but from academic or governmental research, at least for the time being.
We will eventually need companies to come in and figure out commercial viability, so getting started on that earlier than later is all well and good, but we’re still going to be waiting for a while before that viability happens – and unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait to solve climate change. So, while fusion might help, we still need to get to work now on emissions reductions immediately.
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Chevy flew us down to Charlotte for some track and road time with the Chevy Blazer SS EV. The 600+ horsepower beast barely hidden beneath the skin of Chevy’s mid-sized SUV is also the quickest ‘SS’ monikered vehicle the company has ever produced. The Blazer SS also has a ton of extras like a standard, robust SuperCruise, which competes favorably with the Performance line from domestic competitors like Tesla’s Model Y and Ford’s Mustang Mach-e GT.
As one could imagine, a trip to Charlotte to test the Chevy Blazer SS should begin at the track. There, we got to experience a few laps at the raceway, along with some 3.4-second wide-open throttle 0-60 times, but not the 11.8-second quarter mile at 115mph that Chevy advertises. I have no doubt that the SS can handle that, especially with the right tires.
But the SS isn’t just a straight line monster, it also is a very respectable track car. The Blazer felt tied to the road with inefficient but huge 22-inch tires, a massive 102kWh Ultium battery and a long 10-foot wheelbase, all tops in the class:
Interior
The interior of the Blazer is definitely sporty and probably a bit polarizing with those jet engine looking vents. Also polarizing is GM’s decision to do away with Carplay and go with Google’s Android based center stack system. I don’t quite follow the logic of not letting people decide but here we are.
As with other companies utilizing this system like Volvo/Polstar, I think it works pretty great but you can see some of the lag in the video below. Note there have been significant updates since our Blazer first look at the end of last year and it was certainly passable and Google tends to update this stuff pretty frequently.
As for the seats and the cockpit, I’m giving the Blazer high marks. Our 4 hours of driving were easy even through back country roads where Supercruise was almost useless. The wrap around screens are very nice and wow, what a great heads up display. I wouldn’t change a thing here.
One nag coming from a Tesla FSD owner: I wish Supercruise could talk to Google maps better. As it stands, if Google tells you to exit, the highway, Supercruise doesn’t yet listen. GM is working on this.
The Blazer SS is a mid-sized SUV which is a step up size-wize from the Mustang Mach-E or Tesla Model S so there is some additional room there.
303 Miles of range from 102kWh battery
Probably the biggest standout feature on the Blazer SS is not only the speed but also the range over 300 miles. 303 EPA est. to be exact. How did GM do this? The same way they got the Silverado/Sierra to 440 Miles. They just threw a ton of battery at it. In this case 102kWh of batteries compared to 90kWh for the Mustang and 75kWh for the Tesla Model Y P. The Kia EV6 GT drops down to nearly 200 miles when you add the performance package so this is clearly the only vehicle in its class that goes hard on speed AND Range.
Note that you will be able to charge up at 190kWh but I didn’t get to check the charging curve on this one. That’s a respectable speed, but I wonder how nice an 800V architecture would have been for charging. Hyundai/Kia EGMP platform vehicles and Tesla do better here.
Electrek’s take
I liked the Chevy Blazer SS a lot more than I thought I would. The interior is comfortable yet exciting. The exterior is neat. The power and performance are riveting, and the price is respectable. I will definitely recommend the Blazer SS to folks coming off of Model Ys and who are looking for a similar and often better vehicle.
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Lime, a global leader in shared electric micromobility, is significantly expanding its fleet this spring with the launch of two new vehicles – the LimeBike and LimeGlider.
After a successful series of pilot programs in 2024, Lime announced plans to roll out more than 10,000 of these new electric vehicles across multiple cities in Europe and North America in the coming months.
The introduction of the LimeBike and LimeGlider mark a key step forward for Lime as the company aims to attract a wider range of riders to shared micromobility. Both vehicles feature significant design innovations informed by extensive rider feedback, city partner consultations, and performance data gathered from Lime’s extensive operational experience.
The LimeBike marks the return of the Lime brand’s original name in a refreshed and modern form. Designed specifically to enhance rider accessibility and comfort, the LimeBike features an approachable step-through frame making it easier to mount and dismount.
Additionally, it has a unique ergonomic clamp design allowing riders to easily adjust seat height. This feature was developed directly from rider feedback, aiming to make the bike more inclusive for riders of different heights and abilities.
Smaller 20-inch wheels give the LimeBike improved handling and a compact feel, making it more maneuverable in dense urban settings.
Unlike European markets, the LimeBike is offered in US markets will also include a hand throttle, allowing riders the flexibility to choose between traditional pedal-assisted cycling and throttle-only operation. This flexibility caters to varying rider preferences and physical abilities, broadening the appeal of the bike in a market where most e-bike riders tend to prefer throttle operation.
The LimeGlider, meanwhile, introduces a completely new vehicle type to Lime’s fleet – a seated, pedal-less electric vehicle designed for effortless riding. Combining the comfort of a seated ride with the simplicity of a scooter, the LimeGlider aims to appeal especially to riders who prefer a less physically demanding ride experience or who may have limitations making traditional scooters challenging.
Designed with rider comfort as a priority, the LimeGlider includes footrests instead of pedals, a large padded moped-style seat positioned lower to the ground to lower the center of gravity, and intuitive ergonomic hand grips to reduce rider fatigue. The green and black colorway sets it apart somewhat from Lime’s usual green and white fleet, further underscoring its new role as a bridge between scooters and bicycles in terms of ride experience.
Both the LimeBike and LimeGlider incorporate several shared improvements aimed at boosting convenience and safety. Wider front baskets offer increased utility for everyday errands and ergonomic phone holders provide secure and accessible navigation for riders. Each vehicle is equipped with 2.5-inch tires optimized for reliable traction in varying conditions.
From the tech side, the LimeBike and LimeGlider represent Lime’s most advanced offerings yet. Lime says that improved location accuracy within the vehicles’ onboard systems ensures quicker identification and responsiveness in recognizing designated parking zones, restricted access areas, and low-speed zones, crucial for compliance with city regulations and enhancing rider safety.
Sustainability has also been central to the design philosophy behind Lime’s latest vehicles. Utilizing modular construction methods, the LimeBike and LimeGlider are among the most repairable vehicles Lime has produced to date. Modular components mean quicker, easier repairs, minimizing downtime and extending vehicle lifespan. Both vehicles share Lime’s proprietary swappable battery technology, common across the company’s Gen4 fleet, streamlining operations and reducing environmental impacts by prolonging battery life and optimizing energy usage.
The pilot tests conducted in 2024 underscored the strong market potential for both vehicles. Lime reported notably positive rider responses, with high rates of repeat usage and longer ride durations, particularly with the LimeGlider. For instance, during the pilot in Seattle and Zurich, riders frequently embarked on journeys exceeding 5 kilometers and averaging over 15 minutes per trip, surpassing the usage patterns of Lime’s existing Gen4 electric bikes.
Building upon these successful pilots, Lime’s spring launch targets several strategically selected cities. The LimeBike is set to roll out in Turin, Italy; Aarhus, Denmark; Nice, France; and Nyon, Switzerland, expanding into areas with established cycling cultures and infrastructure. The LimeGlider debuts in major U.S. cities including Denver, Austin, and San Francisco, markets that Lime identifies as primed for growth in seated, scooter-like micromobility solutions. Both vehicles will also see wider availability in cities like Atlanta, Seattle, and Zurich, where initial pilots indicated strong rider enthusiasm.
Lime’s President Joe Kraus expressed optimism about the new vehicles, highlighting their appeal during early trials: “During our initial pilots last year, it was clear that the LimeBike and LimeGlider earned the love of our riders, with people returning to them frequently for local travel,” Kraus explained. “We’re so excited to take our next step with these vehicles and bring them to more cities this spring.”
The introduction of these vehicles aligns closely with urban policy goals aimed at reducing car dependency and enhancing accessibility for a diverse range of city residents. Lime specifically designed the LimeBike and LimeGlider to meet the needs of traditionally underrepresented micromobility users, such as older riders and women. Enhanced vehicle stability, ease of use, and adjustable features aim to reduce common barriers to micromobility adoption among these groups.
Since its inception in 2017, Lime riders have collectively completed over 750 million rides, covering more than 900 million miles (over 1.5 billion kilometers). This significant uptake of micromobility solutions has translated into meaningful environmental benefits, replacing an estimated 180 million car trips, thereby preventing over 77 million kilograms of CO2 emissions and saving more than 33 million liters of gasoline.
With the launch of the LimeBike and LimeGlider, Lime is poised to significantly build upon these achievements, further shifting urban transportation patterns toward sustainable, inclusive, and efficient micromobility.
Electrek’s Take
I think that Lime’s new LimeBike and LimeGlider are smart additions that feel well-positioned for today’s micromobility market. It’s also great to see Lime include a throttle on the LimeBike for the North American market, where so many riders prefer to ride without pedaling. For casual users and tourists especially, a throttle can make all the difference between choosing to hop on a shared e-bike or not.
Lime clearly listened to rider feedback, and these new models could help pull even more people into using micromobility instead of cars. Let’s just hope they can keep it up.
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Tesla (TSLA) will release its Q1 2025 financial results today, Tuesday, April. 22, after the markets close. As usual, a conference call and Q&A with Tesla’s management are scheduled after the results.
Here, we’ll look at what the street and retail investors expect for the quarterly results.
Tesla Q1 2025 deliveries and energy deployment
CEO Elon Musk and his loyal shareholders often claim that Tesla is now an AI/Robotics company, but the truth is that the company’s automotive business still drives the vast majority of its financial performance.
Tesla’s revenue remains tied mainly to the number of vehicles it delivers.
Earlier this month, Tesla disclosed its Q1 2025 vehicle production and deliveries:
| Production | Deliveries | Subject to operating lease accounting | |
| Model 3/Y | 345,454 | 323,800 | 4% |
| Other Models | 17,161 | 12,881 | 7% |
| Total | 362,615 | 336,681 | 4% |
It was significantly below expectations and approximately 50,000 units short of what Tesla delivered in Q1 2024.
Analysts have been adjusting their revenue and earnings expectations accordingly since the disclosure a few weeks ago.
Now, Tesla’s energy storage business is also starting to make a meaningful contribution to its financial performance. The company disclosed having deployed 10.4 GWh of energy storage products during Q1 2025.
Tesla no longer discloses solar deployment information.
Tesla Q1 2025 revenue
For revenue, analysts generally have a pretty good idea of what to expect, thanks to the delivery numbers and now the energy storage deployment data.
However, many were taken by surprise by how low Tesla’s deliveries were this quarter and the automaker offered a lot of discounts, which will affect the average sale price that analysts are now trying to figure out.
The Wall Street consensus for this quarter is $21.345 billion, and Estimize, the financial estimate crowdsourcing website, predicts a slightly lower revenue of $21.254 billion.
Here are the predictions for Tesla’s revenue over the past two years, with Estimize predictions in blue, Wall Street consensus in gray, and actual results are in green:
This would be about a $1 billion lower than the same period last year – meaning that analysts don’t expect Tesla’s increased energy storage deployment to compensate for the lower vehicle deliveries.
Tesla Q1 2025 earnings
Tesla claims to consistently strive for marginal profitability every quarter, as it invests the majority of its funds in growth, but its growth has disappeared from its automotive business over the last year, and its gross margin is going in the same direction.
Analysts are trying to estimate Tesla’s gross margin with the lower deliveries to figure out its actual earnings per share.
For Q1 2025, the Wall Street consensus is a gain of $0.41 per share and Estimize’s crowdsourced prediction is a little lower at $0.40.
Here are the earnings per share over the last two years, where Estimize predictions are in blue, Wall Street consensus is in gray, and actual results are in green:
If the estimates are accurate, Tesla’s earnings per share would be down from $0.45 during the same period last year.
There are several things that Tesla could do here that could surprise investors with a significant earnings beat. Tesla could have recognized revenue from the launch of FSD in China, even though the launch was brief and 95% of the value of the FSD package is unsupervised self-driving, which Tesla has yet to deliver.
Tesla could have also sold more emission credits. As of the end of last quarter, Tesla was still sitting on a good amount, and while it claims to sell them when the price makes the most sense, it is quite an opaque market and Tesla could at any time decide to sell them just to save itself from a bad quarter.
Other expectations for the TSLA shareholder’s letter, analyst call, and special ‘company update’
As we reported yesterday, this is likely going to be a messy earnings report. Musk has been on a propaganda spree lately after Tesla suffered immense brand damage and declining stock price due to his involvement in politics.
Now, he has called for a “live company update” at the same time as the release of Tesla’s financial results, which appears to be a desperate move at damage control amid a tough quarter for the company.
I expect that he will try to paint a rosy picture of Tesla’s self-driving and robot efforts to come save the company amid declining EV sales.
As I previously reported, I wouldn’t be surprised if he also pushes for Tesla to invest in his xAI startup or proposes a merger between the companies.
Tesla will also take questions from retail shareholders based on the most popular ones on Say. Here are the top 5 questions and my thoughts on them:
- Is Tesla still on track for releasing “more affordable models” this year? Or will you be focusing on simplified versions to enhance affordability, similar to the RWD Cybertruck?
- We have had the answer to that question for about a year now, but Tesla shareholders don’t believe it because Elon claimed that Reuters’ original report that Tesla canceled its more affordable EV was “wrong” when it fact it wasn’t. As we recently reported, Musk killed the “$25,000 Tesla” in favor of the Robotaxi and building new stripped-down versions of Model Y and Model 3.
- When will FSD unsupervised be available for personal use on personally-owned cars?
- Lol – we are just going to get Elon’s “best guess”, which has been wrong every time for the last decade.
- How is Tesla positioning itself to flexibly adapt to global economic risks in the form of tariffs, political biases, etc.?
- Musk is going to say “you go woke, you go broke” and that his pathetic quest to “kill the woke mind virus” will ultimately be good for Tesla because the world will be rid of this destructive virus. As for the global economic risks, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla announces more layoffs soon.
- Robotaxi still on track for this year?
- It could very well be. We have already reported in detail about how Tesla’s “robotaxi” launch in Austin, planned for June, is actually a “moving of the goal” and it has very little to do with Tesla’s long-stated promise of delivering unsupervised self-driving in a consumer vehicle, as asked in the second question.
- Did Tesla experience any meaningful changes in order inflow rate in Q1 relating to all of the rumors of “brand damage”?
- If they say no here, don’t believe them. Tesla is down 50,000 units in Q1, and yes, the Model Y changeover has something to do with it, but you can clearly see now, based on new Model Y delivery timelines, that Tesla has no order backlog for the vehicle. It will likely launch incentives to sell the brand-new vehicle that was supposed to save Tesla’s auto business in the coming weeks.
Tune in with Electrek after market close today to get all the latest news from Tesla’s earnings, conference call, and now also an apparent “company update.”
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