German research ministry aims to build a fusion power plant as soon as possible

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) wants to use a new nuclear fusion research funding programme to lay the foundations for building Germany’s first fusion reactor for power generation. The goal is to have such a reactor operational by 2040, Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger announced.

"Fusion offers a huge opportunity to solve all our energy problems," Stark-Watzinger said. "Excellent research institutions and a strong industrial base give Germany ideal conditions for building a facility to generate energy from nuclear fusion," she added.

The ministry plans to create a “fusion ecosystem” linking industrial companies with researchers and start-ups, so that the industrial use of the technology can “become a reality as soon as possible”. The ministry did not specify the amount of funding.

Nuclear fusion technology has not yet advanced beyond the research stage anywhere in the world. In recent years, however, several important milestones have been reached, triggering an influx of investment in the technology.

According to the Fusion Industry Association, the field is now experiencing a “technological explosion”. Last year, 13 new nuclear fusion companies began operating, bringing the total to 43.

"The global race is in full swing. I want Germany to be one of the first countries to build a fusion power plant. We must not miss this opportunity," Stark-Watzinger added.

The BMBF has long funded fusion research at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching and Greifswald, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ).

The ministry now plans to establish a second pillar of support focused on advancing the development of technologies, construction materials and components. This is intended to make it possible to move towards implementing nuclear fusion through public-private partnerships in 2030. Last year, the ministry pledged to invest around 1 billion euros in the technology by 2028.

The technology will not be commercially viable in the foreseeable future

Researchers contacted by the German Science Media Centre said that although nuclear fusion technology offers very promising prospects for future power generation, its development will take too long to help with current efforts to protect the climate.

Stark-Watzinger has championed the technology since a successful experiment by US scientists in late 2022, which marked an important milestone in the field. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory succeeded for the first time in carrying out nuclear fusion that produced more energy than it consumed. Scientists said, however, that their discovery was unlikely to be commercially viable in the foreseeable future.

Jan Hesch, a nuclear fusion researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), said there was a scientific consensus in Germany that building a “demonstration power plant” would take at least 20 years, and that it would take even longer to bring nuclear fusion power generation online.

"To stop climate change, we have to reduce emissions now," said climate physicist Jan Wohland of ETH Zurich (ETHZ) in Switzerland. Nuclear fusion “does not work yet” and is therefore not included in the energy planning of the UN climate experts’ panel, the IPCC.

Given the slow pace of progress in nuclear fusion research, the technology is unlikely to play a significant role in energy supply for at least several decades, Wohland said.