Energy Evolution The road to commercial nuclear fusion
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Jul 15, 2025 Francesco Sciortino, CEO of Proxima Fusion, and Steve Piper, Director of Energy Research at S&P Global Commodity Insights, dive into the promising landscape of nuclear fusion. Sciortino highlights the $7.1 billion raised in global fusion startups and emphasizes that investors are eager to get involved. Piper discusses how Big Tech is driving this surge, influenced by the energy demands of data centers. Together, they explore the potential of stellarators and the critical collaboration needed to make fusion a competitive energy source.
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Stellarators vs Tokamaks Explained
- Stellarators confine plasma using twisted, helical magnetic fields for stability and continuous operation.
- They differ from tokamaks by avoiding plasma current instabilities, using complex modular magnets instead.
Key Milestone: Magnet Development
- Focus on developing new magnet technology to increase fusion power by over 100 times.
- Demonstrate a full power stellarator model coil by mid-2027 to unlock the path to energy stellarators.
Fusion Timeline and Scale-Up
- Proxima aims for a net energy producing stellarator demo device by 2032, with first power plants targeted in the 2030s.
- The 2040s could see rapid scaling of fusion power analogous to fission deployment in past decades.