German Startup Wins Accolade For Its Fusion Reactor Design

A German nuclear fusion startup called Proxima Fusion has unveiled its "Stellaris" fusion power plant designed to operate reliably and continuously without the instabilities of tokamaks. It's backed by $65 million in funding, with plans to build a fully operational fusion reactor by 2031. TechCrunch reports: Tokamaks and stellarators are types of fusion reactors that use electromagnets to contain fusion plasma. Tokamaks rely on external magnets and an induced plasma current but are known for instability. Stellarators, by contrast, use only external magnets, which, in theory, enable better stability and continuous operation. However, according to Dr. Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, Proxima's "Stellaris" design is the first peer-reviewed fusion power plant concept that demonstrates it can operate reliably and continuously, without the instabilities and disruptions seen in tokamaks and other approaches.

Proxima published its findings in Fusion Engineering and Design, choosing to share this information publicly to support open-source science. "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 told TechCrunch over a call. "We started out as a group of founders saying it's going to take us two years to get to the Stellaris design ... We actually finished after one year. So we've accelerated by a year," he added.

Re:

[Sique]

Care to elaborate? What's wrong with the theory? We know that fusion works. Humanity has already successfully detonated several fusion devices. The main problem is to confine fusion in a controlled way. This is mainly an engineering and not so much a theoretical problem.

Re:

[jsonn]

Actually, it always was a combination of both. The paper behind this design even mentions various limitations of the current physical understanding of high energy plasmas. The ACs that are moaning about Fusion always being 20 years away don't understand that progress is actually made and has been steadily made for the last 70 years.

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

Fusion works in stars and in nuclear weapons.

Unlike fission power, where the conditions for a sustained reaction are compatible with each other and where a very convenient mechanism for extracting the energy exists, for fusion, at least for the available designs, the conditions for a sustained reaction are self-contradictory and we're not even certain there is an effective way to extract the reaction energy.

These are most definitely not only engineering problems.

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

2031 isn't 20 years away.

Re:

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

True. There are also zero guarantees that the company will have anything working by then.

Re: forever 20 years away

[beelsebob]

Nah, fusion is down to ~5 years away at this point. Thereâ(TM)s at least 3 actual production designs going now:

- CFS ARC
- UKAEA STEP
- This one

All three of them are actually on a genuine path to producing real, grid connected reactors in the next 5ish years.

Contextually depressing.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It seems like there's probably a moral to the story of fusion power being a project that gets you 65 million in funding; while bolting a chatbot onto something that customers don't want has proven to be good for significantly more than that enough times that it's hard to keep track of them all.

Priorities, clearly.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I don't want to say this is a scam, they seem like they are genuine about making it work, but... They won an award for a paper design, that they "plan" to build in 6 years, which given the history of these things and their lack of experience with the tech is ridiculously optimistic.

Accolades Premature

[Roger W Moore]

Every fusion reactor ever designed aims to operate reliably and continuously the problem is that, so far, none of them has achieved that. The only criterion that matters for a fusion reactor design is whether it works. The first person who achieves that is going to get more accolades than they know what to do with. Untli then though, nobody really care how great others think the design is if it does not actually work as a viable fusion reactor..

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

Every fusion reactor ever designed aims to operate reliably and continuously the problem is that, so far, none of them has achieved that.
That is completely wrong.
You are out of the loop.

I guess you are not in a single mailing group for fusion reactors.

There are probably 100 companies on the planet that HAVE a working reactor with positive yield, but have problems in scaling it up to get it commercial viable.

We even have fusion rocket engines since about 10 years ... the Vasimir project run by JPL is working

Sure

[KAdamM]

There are over 400 world-wide working nuclear reactors, there are proven to work, and been improved for over 50 years. All of them cost in range of couple billions, and time to build one from the start is in range of 10 years. There is not a single working fusion reactor, and none is even close to be working continuously, and even dreaming to be used as a power source, not just a research device. We are not even at the level of Chicago Pile 1. But sure, there are some guys that will do that for 65 millions

Paper progress

[Tx]

I'm a fan of fusion energy, I'd say, but even I'm getting tired of all these startups popping up every few months with a design they claim they can bring online in five years or whatever. Just do it already, and let me know when our almost unlimited cheap energy is here!

That being said, my money is personally on a stellarator being the first useful fusion reactor to come online, so maybe these guys will be more than just another concept, you never know.

Re:

[angel'o'sphere]

The energy might be "unlimited" - but it won't be cheap.

For running a fusion reactor you need the fuel to, well: run it.

And getting that fuel is not as cheap as you might think.

Chinese and Americans

[Njovich]

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

You sure that's a good plan? You know we play dirty here right?

Didn't Germany ban nuclear power?

[mkwan]

What was Germany's rationale for banning fission reactors, and does it apply to fusion?

A fusion reactor doesn't produce high-grade nuclear waste, but it creates plenty of the low-grade sort by blasting its containment vessel with neutrons.