Not Demolition: Biblis Nuclear Plant to Deliver Laser Fusion

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Not Demolition: Biblis Nuclear Plant to Deliver Laser Fusion.

On the site of the former Biblis nuclear power plant, blue and orange containers marked “Radioactive” now stand. Construction crews are gutting the reactor blocks on behalf of owner RWE and removing weakly radioactive material from them. But not everything is merely being decommissioned – between blocks A and B, a hall for laser systems is currently being built. The Darmstadt-based company Focused Energy wants to build the world’s first laser-fusion facility there, generating energy by fusing atomic nuclei with powerful laser beams – a process that has so far only been tested at research facilities.

Markus Roth, chief scientist at Focused Energy, speaks about the site with a familiarity that is surprising. “I already have an emotional connection to the site. I first visited the visitor center here as a child in 1978,” he says. Biblis had just entered the power grid at the time. That future ended in 2011 with the withdrawal from nuclear power; official decommissioning has been under way since 2017. Now, of all places, the next attempt is to begin on this site – this time without fission, with fusion.

How the concept behind the domes works

Focused Energy is betting on laser fusion, one of two fundamental approaches. Unlike conventional nuclear reactors, which split nuclei, fusion reactors are intended to mimic the principle of the sun and fuse atomic nuclei together. According to Roth, this promises electricity with little radioactive waste.

The facility being built in Biblis will operate with a reactor sphere measuring 13 to 15 meters in diameter. Its fuel consists of tiny targets: spheres measuring two to three millimeters, filled with a liquid mixture of the hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium and cooled to minus 267 degrees. Ten of these pellets are to be fired electromagnetically into the reactor each second at about 1.3 times the speed of sound. In the center, the beams from 1,200 lasers will meet and vaporize the targets into helium. In the process, neutrons will heat the reactor wall to around 500 degrees – enough for a heat exchanger and, in turn, electricity generation.

Block B from 2029, ignition in 2037

“This is block B, formerly with 1,200 megawatts and today an almost empty concrete shell,” Roth says during the tour. Parts would still have to be removed and decontaminated before Focused Energy moves in and equips the structure with its technology. The first test facility is due to start in block B from 2029 – initially with 50 lasers, with expansion to follow. “Robust fusion will take place here for the first time,” he says. Block A is then expected to generate electricity using laser fusion for the first time, with an output of around 200 megawatts – although it will not yet be fed into the grid. Ignition is scheduled for 2037.

The hall between the two blocks will house the laser systems; mirrors will direct the beams into the respective reactor. According to Roth, leading optics companies Schott, Trumpf and Zeiss are also involved – names associated with German high technology.

Why Biblis of all places?

There are practical reasons for choosing the Biblis site: rail connections, the Rhine port, road links, existing safety facilities, grid access and numerous permits that have already been granted. “Being able to use ready-built facilities here gives us – and Germany – a seven-year head start in competition with China and the United States,” Roth says.

Focused Energy first made contact with RWE about three years ago – at the time concerning laser technology that can be used to look inside sealed containers holding radioactive waste. Hessian state parliament member Ines Claus (CDU) then asked the decisive question at some point: Why redevelop rather than decommission?

Billion-euro project with state support

Focused Energy was founded in 2021 and has raised $440 million in three funding rounds to date, equivalent to around €380 million. RWE contributed a total of €70 million; additional funding comes from investors in Asia, Europe and the United States, as well as the US energy authority, the Federal Ministry of Research and the state of Hesse. Biblis is also part of one of the federal government’s three fusion hubs.

The capital raised so far is far from sufficient for the two planned facilities in Biblis. “The two facilities will cost between €10 billion and €14 billion,” Roth says. According to him, the first commercial power plants using Focused Energy technology should be operating in the 2040s – including in Biblis, where a third power plant block was once planned. Planning permission already exists for the site.

A second project in Grundremmingen

Focused Energy is not the only company working on fusion power plants in Germany. Four companies in total are pursuing the technology here. Biblis is focused on laser fusion, while the Munich-based company Marvel Fusion is pursuing a different approach in Grundremmingen – magnetic fusion. The Grundremmingen nuclear power plant is also owned by RWE.