Proxima Fusion, a two-year-old German nuclear fusion startup, has published designs for a working fusion power plant in a peer-reviewed journal, hailed as a big leap towards limitless energy. The startup claims this is the first blueprint for a commercial power plant.
Unlike nuclear fission, fusion produces zero carbon emissions and minimal radiation, merging hydrogen atoms to release energy, akin to the sun’s core process.
Fusion reactors like tokamaks and stellarators use electromagnets to contain plasma. Stellarators, relying solely on external magnets, offer greater stability than tokamaks but are complex to design.
Dr. Francesco Sciortino, Proxima Fusion’s CEO, states that their ‘Stellaris’ design is the first peer-reviewed concept demonstrating reliable, continuous operation, avoiding instabilities seen in tokamaks. The Stellaris machine is a quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarator with high-temperature superconducting (HTS).
“Our American friends can see it. Our Chinese friends can see it. Our claim is that we can execute on this faster than anyone else, and we do that by creating a framework for integrated physics, engineering and economics. So we’re not a science project anymore,” Sciortino stated.
Having secured $35 million from the EU and German government, plus $30 million in venture capital, Proxima aims to build a fully operational reactor by 2031, building on results from the Wendelstein 7-X experiment. Proxima made history in 2023 as the first company to spin out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.
Competitors include Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is backed by Bill Gates.
Proxima is also working with the University of Bonn using AI to optimise reactor designs. While Proxima targets a commercial reactor by the late 2030s, experts like Thomas Klinger suggest the 2050s is more realistic.
“It’s important to acknowledge we’ve still got to go and build a fusion reactor,” Sciortino added. “The race isn’t to make a design of a plant — the race is to make the power plant itself.”