In an unassuming industrial park 30 miles outside Boston, engineers are building a futuristic machine to replicate the energy of the stars. If all goes to plan, it could be the key to producing virtually unlimited, clean electricity in the United States in about a decade.
The donut-shaped machine Commonwealth Fusion Systems is assembling to generate this energy is simultaneously the hottest and coldest place in the entire solar system, according to the scientists who are building it.
It is inside that extreme environment in the so-called tokamak that they smash atoms together in 100-million-degree plasma. The nuclear fusion reaction is surrounded by a magnetic field more than 400,000 times more powerful than the Earth's and chilled with cryogenic gases close to absolute zero.
The fusion reaction — forcing two atoms to merge — is what creates the energy of the sun. It is the exact opposite of what the world knows now as "nuclear power" — a fission reaction that splits atoms.
Nuclear fusion has far greater energy potential, with none of the safety concerns around radioactive waste.
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📸 : Sophie Park for CNN
Growing evidence indicates that sustainable construction is moving from image to measurable performance, driven by biophysical realities and the need to decarbonise the built environment. UN scientists’ warnings over global “water bankruptcy” signal that resource efficiency in construction must expand beyond energy and encompass hydrological limits, demanding that sustainable building design incorporates water reuse, harvesting and budgeting within whole life carbon assessment frameworks. In arid regions, projects adopting eco-design for buildings that work with the landscape demonstrate how sustainable urban development now depends as much on hydrology as on planning codes.
Climate risks are reshaping where and how we build. Rebuilding after landslides in India exposes the environmental impact of construction that ignores ecological baselines, underlining the value of sustainable architecture grounded in hazard mapping and life cycle thinking in construction. Developers integrating resilience and circular economy principles into briefs are showing that sustainable building practices not only improve building lifecycle performance but also reduce the carbon footprint of construction across operations and maintenance.
Variability within the global energy transition complicates embodied carbon reduction. As grid decarbonisation diverges between regions, the embodied carbon in materials and the whole life carbon of similar specifications vary widely. Accurate lifecycle assessment and life cycle cost evaluation now shape procurement more than generic “low-carbon” claims. Projects specifying low embodied carbon materials, renewable building materials and green building products sourced through robust environmental product declarations (EPDs) demonstrate how circular construction strategies can deliver measurable net zero whole life carbon outcomes.
Award-winning housing and commercial redevelopment schemes show low carbon design moving from concept to scale. Clients are replacing outdated stock with energy-efficient buildings verified to BREEAM and BREEAM v7 standards, aiming for net zero carbon buildings with proven carbon footprint reduction. These investments align circular economy in construction goals with verifiable performance, evidencing that green construction and eco-friendly construction are now business imperatives rather than niche ambitions.
For designers and investors, action must focus on embodied carbon control, sustainable material specification, end-of-life reuse in construction and continuous lifecycle assessment of assets. The sector is converging on an integrated model of sustainable building design, life cycle cost transparency and carbon neutral construction that links sustainable design intent to measurable whole life carbon performance. Those who demonstrate resilience, circular economy integration and genuine sustainability in practice will secure approvals, insurance and finance in the new low carbon building economy.
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