European nuclear fusion startups are making a play to beat China and the US to commercial-scale power generation. Francesco Sciortino, founder and CEO of Germany-based Proxima Fusion, studied in the same MIT lab that produced one of the leading US fusion startups, Commonwealth Fusion Systems. But he “lost faith” in the prevailing technology there, he said, and set out to design a better system using a “stellarator,” a device that produces power using a superheated plasma contained by magnets. The company has raised about $230 million and plans to demonstrate its custom magnets in the next 18 months, with a functioning demonstration plant by the early 2030s.
While fusion efforts in the US and China have drawn most media attention and investor dollars so far, he said, Europe actually has more functioning fusion labs and more consistent government backing. But there’s a race against time to make progress ahead of competitors: “There’s a Darwinian selection at each phase” of R&D, Sciortino said. “Once other companies start to raise more than a billion dollars it becomes harder for others to keep up.”