New England may soon become the world’s nuclear-fusion capital

The Sun generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 500 million metric tons of hydrogen each second.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Happiest news of the month?

Commonwealth Fusion Systems LLC has just gotten $1.8 billion in private funding to build and operate the world's first commercial fusion-energy machine  at its facility in Devens, Mass. The company, based in Cambridge, thus is moving faster toward what may bring about a revolution in  electricity generation. It could eliminate the scary problem of  trying to find safe places to store the radioactive waste that’s produced by nuclear fission, which is what nuclear-power plants use now.

Commonwealth Fusion hopes that it can prove, by 2025, that its fusion reaction creates more energy than it uses and then build a commercial-scale power plant by 2030.

What an environmental and economic boon for the world – massive amounts of clean, noncarbon-based energy -- and a boon for  New England to have such an enterprise growing in its midst.

Bristol Myers Squibb plans big expansion in Devens

A Bristol Myers product in 1909

From The New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com)

“Bristol Myers Squibb, a New York-based biopharmaceutical company, recently added a 244,000-square-foot expansion to its Devens, Mass., facility to further the company’s efforts to battle cancer. The new addition is expected to begin operations by the end of the year and will be at the forefront of cancer technology for producing Breyanzi, a CAR-T cell therapy designed to treat lymphoma in patients.

“CAR-T cell therapy is a highly specialized process involving genetically modified cells that are personalized to attack a patient’s cancer cells. It generally takes weeks to isolate, freeze, dilute, and monitor the modified cells before the patient can receive an infusion. Though Breyanzi only recently won FDA approval in February 2021 and is a relatively new technology, the Devens expansion seeks to enhance CAR-T cell manufacturing capability for Bristol Myers-Squibb. The site is also expected to add hundreds of jobs.

“Krishnan Viswanadhan, a senior vice president for the company’s global cell therapy franchise, stated, ‘I’m really excited about what cell therapy has to offer.’’’

Read more from the Worcester Business Journal.

Devens is a regional enterprise zone and Census-designated place in the towns of Ayer and Shirley, in Middlesex County, and Harvard, in Worcester County, Massachusetts. It is the successor to Fort Devens, a military post that operated from 1917 to 1996. The population was 1,840 at the 2010 census.

Street scene at Fort Devens in the early 20th Century

Fort Devens Military Cemetery