SJL Client Realta Fusion to Relocate Headquarters & New R&D Hub to Madison’s OM Station
MADISON - A massive nuclear fusion research center is coming to Madison's former Oscar Mayer plant, a key step in Wisconsin's efforts to become a high tech energy hub.
With financial backing from state and local governments, Madison-based Realta Fusion will build a 200,000-square-foot research and development facility at the long-vacant factory site on Madison's east side.
The facility – doubling as the company’s corporate headquarters – will create over 600 jobs in the next five years, Realta announced July 15.
Dubbed “The Realta Forge,” the new facility marks a significant expansion for the 50-person fusion company, which spun out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2022. CEO Kieran Furlong wants to expand the research it’s conducting with the university’s Wisconsin HDS Axisymmetric Mirror, or “WHAM,” a small-scale experimental fusion machine.
Realta picked Madison from a handful of sites, including an undisclosed spot in New Jersey. The area's strong research and manufacturing base made it the right fit, Furlong said.
“We spent the better part of the past two years searching across the country to find the most favorable business environment and the most attractive site to build our R&D facility, and we found it in our own backyard,” Furlong said.
"What Detroit was to the automobile industry in the 1950s, what Houston is today for the global oil and gas industry, I can see Wisconsin being that for the fusion industry of the 21st century," he said at a July 15 event at the Urban League of Greater Madison's Black Business Hub. The event included Gov. Tony Evers, Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, and other state and local lawmakers.
The project will total “hundreds of millions of dollars,” though Furlong said it’s too early to estimate an exact cost. Most of its funding comes from private investors. It’s raised around $60 million so far.
Researchers have been working since the 1930s to generate electricity through nuclear fusion, the same process that powers the sun. Global investment in fusion research hit a record-high $4.5 billion in the past year, according to the Fusion Industry Association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that represents the industry.
The Realta Forge will facilitate the company’s path to building a commercial nuclear fusion plant, which it hopes to achieve by the mid-2030s. It will include multiple demonstration platforms and space for a new, larger fusion machine.
How to harness nuclear fusion
WHAM uses magnets to suspend and heat hydrogen plasma within a magnetic field. The hydrogen ions combine to form helium, releasing immense amounts of energy in the process.
For nuclear fusion to occur, temperatures must reach 150 million degrees Celsius – 10 times hotter than the sun’s core.
At just eight meters long, WHAM can trap an amount of plasma “not much bigger than a dinner plate,” Furlong said. In the new facility, Realta wants to build a machine five times that length called “Hammir.” Construction on the new machine is expected to finish by 2029.
“Think of it going from a dinner plate to something more akin to a coffee table,” Furlong said.
In June, Realta announced that it successfully turned plasma kinetic energy directly into electricity, using a converter attached to WHAM to power a series of light bulbs. Though direct energy conversion has been demonstrated in lab settings for decades, Realta claimed to be the first private company to achieve that milestone.
But commercial fusion is still years away. The goal of Hammir is to demonstrate the conditions for commercial fusion energy. That will require stabilizing the plasma for longer periods of time and producing more energy than it takes to power the fusion process.
Realta ultimately hopes its reactors can power heat-intensive manufacturing industries, like plastics and fertilizer, that need around-the-clock power.
Wisconsin seeks to become fusion hub
The move also represents a major investment in Wisconsin’s fusion energy industry. Lawmakers and business groups want to establish the state as a commercial fusion hub.
The Realta Forge will receive $37.5 million from state sales and use tax exemptions signed by Gov. Tony Evers in April. The company is in talks to receive up to $15 million in tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.
Madison’s city council also approved a $2.8 million tax increment financing district for the former factory site in June.
“Fusion energy is not only good for our planet and our power grid, but it plays to all of our strengths as a state with our world-class research universities, research laboratories, and an incredible manufacturing and supply chain network supported by our dedicated and highly skilled workforce,” Evers said in a statement July 15.
Commercial fusion could upend the state’s energy landscape, proponents say. Unlike fossil fuels, fusion is carbon-free and homegrown (Wisconsin imports all its coal and natural gas). And unlike traditional nuclear fission, it doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste.
It could also be a solution for rapidly growing electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence data centers.
“The hunger for a robust carbon-free source of energy only continues to grow,” said WEDC chief operating officer Sam Rikkers. “It's a fantastic source of energy at a time when we need more and more of it.”
In addition to Realta, fellow Wisconsin fusion companies SHINE Technologies and Type One Energy have roots in the university’s research. WEDC wants to bring more to the state, pouring nearly $800,000 in grant money for start-up fusion companies.
New use for closed Oscar Mayer plant
The facility will also give new life to Madison’s long-vacant Oscar Mayer factory, which employed around 4,000 people at its peak. Neighborhoods on the north side sprouted up to house the workers. When it shut down in 2017, the city lost 600 jobs and a major source of tax revenue.
It was sold later that year to a California-based asset management firm and renamed OM Station. Multiple housing developments opened on the former site.
North side residents remember the instability caused by losing one of the area's major employers, said Ald. Julia Matthews, whose district includes the old factory. An anchor tenant like Realta could be key to bringing more businesses, housing and job growth. In addition to the high-skilled research jobs, the facility will need manufacturers and technicians to build and run the machines.
"It will really hit that whole array," Matthews said.
The facility contains 1.7 million square feet of office and industrial space across eight buildings. That means Realta has plenty of space to grow, Furlong said.
"The Oscar Mayer site, in many ways, had come to represent the past – Wisconsin has a very long history of agriculture and food production," he said. "Fusion energy represents the future. The Realta Forge can become a symbol of what Wisconsin can achieve in the 21st century."
Importantly, it has the energy infrastructure needed to power the fusion machines – something Furlong said has been hard to find as AI data centers drive up electricity demand.
Realta expects to break ground on the new facility by the end of 2026.
