German nuclear fusion startup Proxima Fusion is a two-year-old. They have published plans for a working fusion power plant in a peer-reviewed journal. There they being taught as step change in a race to generate the limitless energy.
Today’s nuclear fission reactors produce radioactive waste. Nuclear fusion radiates vast amounts of energy, with zero carbon emissions. The so-called tokamaks and stellarators are the specific type of fusion that uses electromagnets to contain fusion plasma. Tokamaks entirely rely on external magnets. It induces plasma current but is also known for instability. Stellarators, by contrast, use only external magnets. According to the theory, they enable more reasonable stability-type operations.
However, Proxima Fusion’s co-founder and CEO, Dr. Francesco Sciortino, claims that the company’s “Stellaris” design is the first peer-reviewed fusion power plant concept that shows it can run consistently and dependably without the disruptions and instabilities associated with tokamaks and other methods.
In an effort to promote open-source science, Proxima decided to make its findings freely available after publishing them in “Fusion Engineering and Design.”
Sciortino stated to TechCrunch over a call
“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,”.
He also added
“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,”.
Since its founding two years ago, Proxima has attracted $30 million in venture capital and $35 million in investment from the German government and European Union. By 2031, the business hopes to have a fully functional fusion reactor.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is supported by Bill Gates’s venture capital firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is one of its rivals.
One of Proxima Fusion’s original investors, Ian Hogarth, a Partner at Plural, stated in a statement: “The founders of Proxima said, ‘This is possible, we’ll prove it to you,’ when the company first began out. And they did. QI-HTS stellarators are positioned by Stellaris as the most advanced technology in the worldwide competition for commercial fusion.