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Plans to build a prototype fusion power plant in the United States have come into tighter focus, as a new report lays out a rough timeline for building the multibillon-dollar plant and a strategy for developing its design. The United States should strive to start construction of the pilot by 2035 and to have it running by 2040, according to a report released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). To meet that tight schedule, the report calls for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help fund two to four teams that, in collaboration with private industry, would develop by 2028 different conceptual designs.

“It’s credible and doable,” says William Madia, vice president emeritus at Stanford University, who has often been critical of DOE’s fusion efforts. However, Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, notes the report also points to numerous key technologies that are in a low state of technical readiness and questions whether they can be developed in time. “Reading between the lines, I didn’t feel that it gives you a lot of confidence that these time tables are realistic,” Lyman say.