Billion investment planned
Funding program to strengthen fusion research
09/05/2023 10:32 am
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Nuclear fusion can generate enormous amounts of energy – and it is climate-neutral. In order to make the technology usable in Germany, the Ministry of Education wants to invest one billion euros in research over the next five years.
According to Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, the Federal Research Ministry will invest “a total of more than one billion euros” in fusion research over the next five years. “Fusion is a huge opportunity to solve all of our energy problems,” said the FDP politician in Berlin. The question is no longer whether the merger will come, but rather whether Germany will be there. “That’s my goal,” she added.
Stark-Watzinger announced a new funding program of 370 million euros. According to explanations from your ministry, this is intended to reinforce ongoing activities at the Institute for Plasma Physics, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and at the Research Center Jülich by 2028. It’s about creating a “fusion ecosystem with industry” so that a fusion power plant can become a reality in Germany as quickly as possible, said Stark-Watzinger.
In a position paper on the subject in June, the ministry referred to an increasing demand for energy, parallel to the initiated energy transition away from power generation by burning fossil fuels. “The fact is: We need secure, base load capable, affordable and CO₂-neutral energy sources,” it says. In nuclear fusion, unlike in reactors in conventional nuclear power plants, atomic nuclei are fused instead of split.
Theoretically, very large amounts of energy could be generated in this way – and in a climate-neutral manner. At the end of last year, researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA reported a breakthrough: for the first time, more energy was generated than consumed in a fusion experiment. However, it is still unclear whether and when the technology can be used to generate energy on a large scale.