The following submission statement was provided by /u/bitfriend6:

Since there's been New Fusion News every week since the 50s I'll elaborate on why I consider this to be different:

San Diego -based General Atomics is partnering with the Savanah River Natl. Lab in South Carolina to build a fusion reactor. This is due to the SRNL's existing experience with tritium-based radioactive gas used as fuel in a fusion reation while General Atomics is one of the contractors for yet-to-be-completed ITER, and this project will use designs evolved from ITER. The SVRNL will help them design and test all the parts needed for the plant and then assist with building one, including site selection. The site selection is notable because South Carolina is one of the biggest nuclear states in the US, having sparred several times with the Obama and Trump administrations over Nevada's refusal to take their nuclear waste. South Carolina is generally supportive of nuclear power, as is nearby Georgia and Tennessee, where work on the Watts Bar 2 and Vogtle 2 reactors has recently completed - "recently" in nuclear contracting terms. The supply chain elements for a fusion reactor like engineers, materials, labor and concrete all exist in these places and there is a no aggressive environmentalist movement like California's Sierra Club to stop construction. Adjacent to this are smaller Small Modular Reactor fission reactors planned for the Oak Ridge National Lab, and conceivably that would be an ideal site as a fusion reaction needs a lot of power to start it (similar to a diesel motor and compressed air or a gasoline motor with electric spark plugs).

Whether or not the plant actually works is anyone's guess, but there's other uses for a fusion reactor namely QA testing nuclear bomb components. This is what the US government's existing non-commercial fusor does in Livermore, California. Biden is already upgrading all the national labs for next-generation energy research, including new supercomputers capable of managing a fusion reactor, so this comes at an opportune time and will probably be built.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yry6z1/san_diego_company_plans_to_build_a_nuclear_fusion/ivw9lgm/