Die Fusionsenergie rückt näher – nein, wirklich – Die Aktion verlagert sich vom öffentlichen in den privaten Sektor

From the article

>Two developments in the coming year will mark a decisive shift from the public to the private sector in the decades-old quest to generate cheap and abundant power from nuclear fusion. The first will be the opening towards the end of 2025, by a private firm, of a machine called SPARC. This will be the first fusion reactor, public or private, designed to operate at near-commercial scale, with an eventual output of about 140 megawatts (MW). The second will be the non-opening of ITER, the flagship of intergovernmental fusion collaboration, which was scheduled to be ready in 2025. In a hurried announcement in July, that date was postponed.

SPARC is being built by Commonwealth Fusion, a spin-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Design-wise, it is a tokamak. This is a machine with a toroidal (ie, doughnut-shaped) reaction vessel surrounded by powerful electromagnets which confine and heat the fuel. That fuel is a plasma of two exotic isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and tritium. These, when suitably heated and confined, undergo a fusion reaction that liberates helium, neutrons—and a lot of energy.

[Original Article](https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2024/11/20/fusion-power-is-getting-closer-no-really)

For 98% of us, ‘the action shifting from public to private’ isn’t considered a good thing.