Fusion Holds a Third of the Grid, and the Old Coal Town Waits

KATOWICE, Poland — Fusion baseload now carries close to 30 percent of the reconnected global grid, and Aurora Fusion Works, the sector's chief builder, is preparing to sync a new reactor next month that its chief executive Emeka Okonkwo says will "nudge that share upward again." None of that has yet reached Bytom, a former coal town in the Silesian valley where 5,200 grid-adjacent jobs vanished as the old plants closed and only 1,900 fusion-era posts have arrived. "They told us the clean power would come here first because the transmission lines already ran to us," said Danuta Wrobel, who reskilled from mine electrician to substation technician and now trains others too slowly to keep the town whole. Regional authorities confirm the retraining pipeline runs three years behind the closures. The valley does not doubt the physics, Wrobel said; it doubts the calendar. The grid's cleanest third, for now, is warming other people's winters.