Dusseldorf The idea of nuclear fusion sounds tempting: nuclear energy, safe and inexhaustible. The start-up Marvel Fusion has set itself the task of making the dream of fusion energy, which has been unfulfilled for decades, come true. The project also inspires investors: Marvel Fusion is now collecting 35 million euros, the main investor is the venture capital company Earlybird.
It is a large sum for a company that is more of a research project than it already has a business model. “We are confident that Marvel Fusion will lead the race to commercialize fusion-based electricity and become the global champion made in Europe,” says Earlybird co-founder Hendrik Brandis, who is moving into the start-up’s advisory board.
The venture fund Blue Yard Ventures and the investor Albert Wenger are also on board. BMW heiress Susanne Klatten left with her investment subsidiary Skion at the end of 2020.
The technology is still in its infancy, and development is facing high hurdles. That’s why the Munich-based company is now also getting expertise from industry leaders. The energy group Siemens Energy, laser manufacturer Trumpf and technology specialist Thales are to help nuclear fusion achieve a breakthrough. “By working with strong industry partners, we can significantly accelerate the development of our novel fusion technology,” says Marvel Fusion CEO Moritz von der Linden.
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Siemens Energy will help develop commercially viable power plant designs and technologies for converting fusion energy into electricity, while Trumpf and Thales will advance the development and production of industrial-scale laser systems.
The power of fusion is something like the holy grail of the energy world, the dream of an artificial sun on earth. Inside our central star, hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei, releasing a great deal of energy in the process. So far, every attempt to generate this fusion on Earth has failed.
Several startups believe they have found the solution in a new approach: high-powered lasers. However, they still have to be developed. “The exponential developments in lasers are key to Marvel Fusion’s novel fusion approach,” agrees Trumpf Chief Technology Officer Peter Leibinger. In his eyes, fusion energy is “an important building block for the energy sovereignty of Europe and Germany”.
It’s not just European companies that are trying out this future technology. HB11 Energy from Australia is also working on the development of a super laser. So far, attempts at fusion energy have focused on a magnet-based approach.
For example in Cadarache in southern France, where scientists from two dozen countries have been working for a long time to get the process going with the “Iter” reactor. The magnets are said to produce nuclear fusion in extremely hot plasma clouds. The Chinese project EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) also wants to produce fusion energy with magnetic fields.
The Californian company TAE takes a slightly different approach. With the help of a particle beam, the elements boron and hydrogen are to be heated in a fusion chamber to the plasma state and thus brought to fusion. According to TAE, the reactor, dubbed “Norman,” has been conducting more than 600 experiments each month, powering itself.
The first commercial plant should be in place by 2030. TAE has been working towards its goal for 20 years. To date, development has cost $880 million. “This is scientifically exciting, but miles away from a breakthrough,” says Hartmut Zohm from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching in an interview with the Handelsblatt. He does not believe in a commercial plant by 2030.
>> Read here: How start-ups want to generate energy with super lasers
In total, there are more than 30 private companies working on the development of fusion energy worldwide. The results are sobering. A stable, reproducible process has not yet been achieved, and a positive energy balance is a long way off. According to the current status, a first experimental reactor can be expected in 2035 at the earliest. This is far from commercial use. Above all, research consumes a lot of energy before it generates any.
Marvel Fusion is not deterred by this. The people of Munich believe they have found the key difference in the shape of the fuel. While Iter and other projects work on the basis of deuterium and tritium atoms, Marvel Fusion, HB11 Energy and TAE believe that two elements can succeed with almost no harmful radiation. When using hydrogen and boron, helium is released instead of neutrons. There would hardly be any radioactivity anymore.
A risky venture
“At its core, Marvel Fusion is about two things: you have to develop a laser that doesn’t exist yet and generate fusion energy,” says Zohm. When it comes to laser technology, head of technology Georg Korn is one of the best developers on board. “He can build it,” Zohm is convinced. However, the physicist does not yet believe that a fusion will actually take place in the end.
In his eyes, Marvel Fusion has not yet found an adequate replacement for its former chief scientist Markus Roth. The physicist from the TU Darmstadt was one of the most important minds of the start-up, but surprisingly left Marvel Fusion at the end of March 2020. The reason given was that he wanted to devote more time to his university research again. His field of research: laser fusion based on deuterium and tritium. Siemens Energy, Trumpf and Thales could help Marvel Fusion develop. But the dream of fusion energy remains a gamble.
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