Stephen Shankland

Stephen Shankland

@stshank.bsky.social

Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company commercializing fusion energy: clean, safe, affordable, secure. Former science and technology journalist. Bird nerd. Assigned to the Conehead clique as a teenager.

1.4K followers847 following2.2K posts

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Basically you have all the fuel you need onsite when you build the fusion power plant. No pipelines, no tanker ships required. (Our fusion fuel is deuterium and tritium. D is extracted from water; T from the plant's blanket during operation.) #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

"You can provide enough fuel to power the entire fusion power plant for its entire lifetime … just sitting there from day one, which really changes how you think of energy security.” 1/4

youtube.comBrandon Sorbom Co-Founder of Commonwealth Fusion: How Close Are We to Limitless Energy?YouTube video by What's Next with Philip Meissner
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Semiconductor technology is what makes computer chips possible — all that stuff about etching circuitry into silicon wafers. It also applies to modern fusion equipment like radio-frequency generators to heat our plasma and power supplies to deliver electricity to our magnets. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

CFS and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce have signed a letter of intent for a proposed $85 million award that would advance semiconductor research and development for fusion energy. 1/6 cfs.energy/news-and-med...

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Interesting trend. I see many enormous pickups & SUVs in California and wonder if purchasing will shift.

Simon Evans@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org

Reuters: "Battery-electric vehicle registrations in Europe rose 70.3% in ‌Sep, as high oil prices, subsidies &…more affordable models continued to lead the growth. Around 1/3 of cars sold…were BEVs…amid a FR/DE to soften proposed EU car emissions rules"

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

My biggest annoyance with Mimestream is that opening an email marks it as read; I want that status change only when I've actually read it, not just cruised by while navigating the inbox. Guess what? There's a setting for that. Yay!

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

One difference between Kitty Hawk and SPARC Q>1: It wasn't obvious during that early flight that there would be a commercial aviation industry. With net fusion energy, that promise and scale-up trajectory are clear. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

"We forget that up until the Wright brothers, there were people saying that [flight] was physically impossible — despite the evidence that birds fly." 1/3

youtube.comFusion energy is approaching its Kitty Hawk momentYouTube video by Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Ten years later and MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak is *still* of use. I see new research papers circulating that include what we learned on C-Mod. For example, you can validate computer models to see if your simulations match actual results recorded on C-Mod. #FusionEnergy #Energy

blog.cfs.energyHow the Alcator C-Mod tokamak blazed the CFS trail to fusion power | The Tokamak TimesTen years ago today, a group of physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pushed a fusion machine called a tokamak farther than any had ever been pushed. In that moment, they also helped...
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

This is what we mean when we say we've begun shifting our weight from our SPARC foot to our ARC power plant foot. SPARC is a big deal, but we're tackling the longer-term ARC work, too. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

Fusion energy is often discussed as a matter of plasma physics, funding, and machine design, but bringing commercial fusion to the grid also requires a global industrial base that can manufacture critical components at scale. 1/4

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Some pretty constructive work in Washington, D.C., toward bringing fusion energy to the grid sooner and at larger scale.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

Some big progress advancing fusion energy in the United States today: the introduction of the American Leadership in Fusion Act, a bill with bipartisan backing that would hasten the day that the country could benefit from this new source of energy. 1/5

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Our fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth TF magnets are now in place in tokamak hall. Our SPARC fusion machine will have 18 total — two sets of nine we'll later join into a single donut-shaped arrangement. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

In case you've been wondering — yes, we've been quite busy 🧲. We're now up to eight installed toroidal field (TF) magnets of the 18 total our SPARC fusion machine needs to help confine its superhot plasma. 1/2

youtube.comSerious progress installing fusion magnets for SPARC #FusionEnergy #MagnetsYouTube video by Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

I'm pretty good about using a chinstrap with my hat when it's windy, but I confess that seeing all the lens caps retrieved out of Yellowstone makes me pretty nervous. www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...

outsideonline.comTourists Dropped 26,000 Items into Yellowstone Geysers This Year. Here Are the Weirdest Ones.Crews at Yellowstone National Park recovered over 20,000 pieces of trash, 5,600 rocks, and hundreds of hats from the park’s hydrothermal features in 2026—a 50 percent jump from last year.
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Take a look at the plumbing that'll cool our magnets to 8 K (or 15 K or 80 K, in some cases). Superconducting magnets make our fusion machines possible, and cryogenics makes our magnets superconduct. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

The cryogenic team at CFS, responsible for the system that pulls heat from the SPARC tokamak and cools its magnets, recently hit a major achievement: Getting SPARC's cryogenic system down to its operating temperature of 8 kelvin. 1/4 youtu.be/eZcoMqijqDA

youtu.beThe most extreme temperature gradient in the solar systemYouTube video by Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Just look at all the fricking galaxies in this JWST photo. I mean yay they found a new oldest galaxy, but look at all the rest, then extrapolate. It fills me with awe. www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/webb-ga...

skyatnightmagazine.comThe James Webb Space Telescope has found the most distant galaxy ever seen, at the dawn of the cosmos. Again. | BBC Sky at Night MagazineAt a redshift of z = 14.44, MoM-z14 usurps the former record holder JADES-GS-z14-0. Quick guide to Webb's discovery.
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

It's fair to ask whether fusion energy will be economical/competitive. The progress we've made nailing the physics and engineering fundamentals is what makes that discussion about commercialization worthwhile. www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #FusionEnergy

bloomberg.comFusion Gets $14 Billion Bet It’s More Than a ‘Science Project’So far, scientists have pulled off energy-generating reactions only in laboratory settings, and the path there has been slow and costly. But companies say they’re getting rapidly closer to commercial ...
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Ooh, it's that time of the year again.

Mineral Cup & Ore Cup@mineralcup.bsky.social

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 11 It's a pair of minerals that pull off near-magical tricks with their properties as ubiquitous #Calcite is up against rarity #Julienite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

mineralcup.orgVote in Round 1 Match 11 — Mineral Cup & Ore CupVote in Calcite vs Julienite Credit: Harold Moritz and David Hospital
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

This is always cool. Pumping a lot of power out of our home battery onto the grid during a three-hour virtual power plant event. Very hot temperatures in California today, so lots of air conditioning running. We get paid for this power.

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Sure, fusion energy is hard, but remember that other hard things include smartphones, airplanes, submarines, spacecraft that keep an eye out for unpleasant solar storms, and Liebherr Crawler Crane LR 13000 Lego sets.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

“We're dealing with a situation today in fusion where the toolset available to the innovator is just so much broader and deeper than it was even five years ago.” 1/4

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

DDR = dry dress rehearsal = dry run × dress rehearsal. (A wet dress rehearsal for a rocket means you fuel up even though you don't launch.) Our DDR for SPARC will be like running a tokamak fusion pulse, but with just the support systems and no actual tokamak. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

CFS is gearing up for SPARC’s dry dress rehearsal (DDR), firing up our tokamak’s support systems. In parallel with tokamak assembly, we're validating critical support systems like power and cooling under real operating conditions. 1/2

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Waymo tucks some potshots at Tesla into this interesting post on autonomous vehicle tech. — Multiple sensors (lidar, camera, radar) are essential — Supervised self-driving is a "false summit" Maybe so, but I think Tesla is climbing. waymo.com/blog/2026/08...

waymo.com10 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million Fully Autonomous MilesMuch of the autonomous vehicle (AV) space is uncharted territory. However, at Waymo, with more than 200 million miles driven fully autonomously, we’re one of very few companies that can look to our pa...
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

This is confidence, not cockiness. We've put enormous thought and energy into getting this right, and we're building on lots of work at other tokamaks (including many tokamaks where our own founders and other employees worked). #FusionEnergy #SPARC

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

At CFS, we’re very confident that our SPARC tokamak will generate net fusion energy, a crucial performance threshold also called Q>1. 1/3

blog.cfs.energyWhy CFS is confident we’ll demonstrate net fusion energy: Q>1 | The Tokamak TimesOnly one machine in the world has achieved net fusion energy. Here’s why we're confident our SPARC fusion demonstration machine will be the next.
Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Tonight's blood moon / lunar eclipse. Alas, the SF Bay Area clouds made it quite murky, but they were thin enough not long after maximum to let me get a photo while it was still a little red. #LunarEclipse #Astrophotography #BloodMoon #Moon

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

This helps you see how one of our TF magnets is hoisted into place alongside its peers. TF = toroidal field = the magnetic field going around the inside of the tokamak' donut shape, the main part of holding a hot plasma in place for fusion. #FusionEnergy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

Big, world-changing technologies don't happen in a flash. They're built on days, then months, and then years of steady progress toward a singular goal. When we turn on our #SPARC tokamak and generate net fusion energy, it may feel like an overnight success to those who haven't tracked us. 1/3

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

These tanks are for our cryogenic system — nitrogen and helium that'll get our SPARC tokamak's magnets cold for top performance. #FusionEnergy #magnets

Commonwealth Fusion Systems@cfs.energy

The future of fusion isn't built all at once. As #SPARC moves closer to operation, our team is commissioning the systems that make fusion possible — 1/4

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

Amazing to see this file format make it to the web after Chrome devs initially shot it down. JPEG XL aka JXL offers smaller file sizes / higher image quality vs JPEG and other formats, plus it supports HDR photos, lossless compression options, and more. Info here: jpegxl.info

jpegxl.infoJPEG XL: Superior Image CompressionExplore JPEG XL, the next-generation image format delivering superior compression, fast encoding/decoding, and seamless JPEG transcoding. The future of image compression is here.
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Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

1. I use my NYTimes account on 2 laptops with 3 web browsers, plus a phone and a tablet. I have to endure this "confirm your account" BS constantly. 2. I'm so old I remember when an entire household would get a copy of the newspaper. You didn't need separate subscriptions for each family member.

Stephen Shankland
@stshank.bsky.social

This is one of a pair of red-tailed hawks that's pretty much replaced (pushed out?) the pair of red-shouldered hawks that used to live somewhere near our house. They fly around hollering almost as much as the red-shouldered hawks. #birds #birding #NaturePhotography #California 🐦