Berlin to invest €1 billion as it plans for return to reactor technology after phaseout
Germany will invest more than €1bn ($1.07bn) in fusion research over the next five years as it sets out to “create a fusion ecosystem” so that a power plant can become “a reality in Germany as quickly as possible”.
“Fusion is a huge opportunity to solve all our energy problems,” said research minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger, a member of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
She said it was no longer a question of whether fusion will materialise, but rather if Germany will be part of it.
Stark-Watzinger announced a new support programme worth €370m – which together with funds already earmarked makes €1bn – to strengthen activities already underway at the Institute for Plasma Physics, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Research Centre Jülich until 2028.
The investments were aimed at creating a joint “fusion ecosystem with industry” to enable a fusion power plant in Germany as soon as possible, Stark-Watzinger said.
Germany already has “pole position” in fusion research and should make better use of this advantage by launching a new funding programme, she said.
In a position paper published earlier this year, the research ministry said that Germany was already in pole position in fusion research, and should make better use of this advantage by launching a new funding programme.
The ministry said its position paper will form the basis “for a strategic reorientation of national fusion research and for the path to a first power plant”, by focusing on the strengthening of German companies so that they can build fusion power plants, and to create a fusion ecosystem.
2002, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Green party government, led by then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder, enacted a law to phase out nuclear energy.
Angela Merkel’s government announced plans to reverse the law in 2010, but the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in March 2011 resulted a major shift in Germany’s attitude towards nuclear power.
Germany took its last three nuclear reactors offline in April in a decision that critics warned would only lead to more fossil fuels being burned to generate electricity.
