Realta Fusion moving into OM Station
The Madison-based company is expected to create over 600 jobs and move fusion research forward.
By Abigail Becker Girard
Northside News
During Oscar Mayer’s heyday at the 72-acre production facility at 910 Mayer Ave., employees worked there for decades and enjoyed the competitive pay and benefits the company offered. Now, a new company hopes to provide that same long-term job stability and local economic boost at the property called OM Station.
This time, the jobs are in nuclear fusion and not in hot dogs and lunchmeats.
“We want to be a place where people born and raised on the north and east sides of Madison can start, grow and complete their careers — just like it was when Oscar Mayer occupied the property,” Realta Fusion CEO and Co-founder Kieran Furolong said in an emailed statement.
Realta Fusion is a Madison-based company with its roots at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The company’s leaders want to scale up research on electricity generation through nuclear fusion, which is the process of combining atoms that results in a safe and clean form of energy production, at its new facility called “Forge.”
The former Oscar Mayer property emerged as the top contender for Realta Fusion after a two-year, nationwide search. Furlong said OM Station offers the necessary space (over 200,000 square feet) and power to build the industrial infrastructure required to develop fusion subsystem technologies — plasma heating devices, cryogenics, and high-temperature superconducting magnets, for example — needed for a prototype fusion machine called Hammir.
“OM Station is the place where we’ll learn how to build, test and integrate all the elements we need to eventually construct and operate that future fusion power plant,” said Furlong, who expects to turn on the Hammir machine in 2029.
If successful, Realta’s next step would be to build a fusion power plant at a separate site. The current project is expected to generate over 600 jobs, which include plasma physicists and nuclear engineers and also technicians, maintenance and operations workers.
“Fusion needs plumbers, welders, pipefitters, electricians, and people who know how to bend sheet metal, just like any other industry,” Furlong said. “We think we can source and train up much of our future team from the local talent pool.”
Through a jobs incentive agreement, the City of Madison could contribute up to $2.8 million in tax increment finance loans if Realta meets certain performance thresholds that include net new property value and jobs created.
In terms of other impacts, the nuclear fusion experiments will require a significant amount of electricity. Realta will pay for electric upgrades, and Madison Gas & Electric is working with the company to ensure there’s no impact on the grid.
Water is not used at significant levels in nuclear fusion, and no noise, smells or other operational impacts are expected. There will be additional traffic from employees, but not more than when Oscar Mayer was operating.
Furlong wants Northside neighbors to know that Realta Fusion is not building a power plant, and radioactive materials will not be brought to or stored at the site. The prototype machine runs on a stable, non-radioactive isotope of hydrogen called deuterium.
“We’re building a research and development facility where we will design, test and integrate technology subsystems, so that we learn how to build a power plant that will live somewhere else,” Furlong said.
Realta is now hiring. Career information can be found at realtafusion.com/careers.
