Excitement in the fusion community is palpable. Jokes about fusion forever being 30 years away have grown stale. Investment – which once crawled at a snail’s pace – is flooding in as some private companies say they’ll demonstrate successful fusion by the mid-2020s with power on the grid by the 2030s. Weight for weight, fusion fuel releases ten million times the amount of energy of coal.
Oil and gas firms are joining private investors, and the likes of Google, Jeff Bezos and PayPal founder Peter Thiel are backing the sector.
Now the UK is feted as the most fusion-industry-friendly country in the world, with the prospect of supply chain and regulation certainty on the horizon, as well as playing host to future experimental pilot plants. Companies have been founded around the world, from India to China to Australia, as well as North America and Europe.
“In one fell swoop, the investment in private fusion companies has doubled – it’s really exciting,” says...