Private investors have invested large sums in these companies, too. Department of Energy and the German and U.K. Funding has begun flowing to private fusion companies from the U.S. In late 2021, scientists at the Joint European Torus, a research facility in the U.K., produced a plasma that generated 11 megawatts of power over a short, but significant, period of time. Last December, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, in California, achieved fusion ignition - the point at which a nuclear fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining. Even pursuing it, some critics felt, was a distraction from taking more immediate action to lower greenhouse gas emissions.īut recent technological breakthroughs in the United States and Britain - coupled with heightened insecurities over global energy supplies - are refocusing attention on fusion. Fusion has been talked about for so long, and has faced such daunting challenges, that its realization - if it is realized at all - has always seemed extremely far off in the future. Observers could be forgiven for reacting to Laukien’s claims with skepticism. “Fusion is the key to a decarbonized future.” “If we really want a fully renewable energy supply, we need fusion as a third pillar,” Laukien said, in addition to wind farms and solar panels. Within 20 years, he pronounced, scientists would be able to emulate the process that fuels the sun and use it to generate infinite green energy on Earth. In his long career, he has turned his Bruker Corporation, based outside of Boston, into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of scientific instruments.īut when Laukien was recently handed the microphone at Forum Fusion, an annual get-together of scientists, engineers, and business people in Berlin, he sounded exuberant. Frank Laukien, a U.S.-German physicist and billionaire entrepreneur, typically exudes the calm rationality of a CEO who runs a large, multinational company.
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