Germany Plans Nationwide Fusion Power Hubs

German Minister of Research, Technology and Space Dorothee Bär has officially announced the locations of the coming “Hubs for Fusion” as part of the country’s efforts to build the world’s first fusion power generation plant – something Bär called “a very promising goal.”

The plans include the following:

• A hub based in Bavaria to focus on magnet-fusion technology with tritium as a fuel. It will be directed by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and the start-up Proxima Fusion. Another company, Gauss Fusion is also involved. The project encompasses two research reactors in Garching in the south and Greifswald in the northeast.
• A hub focusing on laser fusion in Biblis in western Germany and Hamburg and the regional state of Schleswig-Holstein in the north. It will be directed by the company Focused Energy and will involve the firm Marvel Fusion and European collaborative project XFEL.
• A hub at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in southwestern Germany concentrating on fuel and materials research.

Bavaria has already pledged to invest EUR 400 million in fusion technologies, and further billion-strong investments, public and private, are anticipated for the years to come. 

Source: Handelsblatt