13 August 2026

^{Photo by Focused Energy}

 

Germany’s abandoned nuclear infrastructure may yet have an unexpected second life.

On 29 July, the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space selected Biblis, a decommissioned nuclear power station south of Frankfurt, as the industrial centre of Germany’s national laser-fusion hub.

A Le Monde report published on 11 August has since brought the project to a wider international audience. The plan brings together electricity group RWE, German-American fusion start-up Focused Energy, laser-fusion developer Marvel Fusion and almost 20 scientific partners.

Focused Energy ultimately wants to build what it describes as the world’s first commercial laser-fusion power plant at Biblis. Its current roadmap envisages a first laser at the site in 2028, initial experiments in a diagnostics chamber in 2031, a pilot plant in 2035 and the first electricity supplied to the grid in 2037.

Those dates are targets, not firm delivery commitments. Selection as Germany’s laser-fusion hub does not mean that a commercial power station has been approved, fully financed or shown to be technically viable. No fusion system has yet supplied electricity to a power grid, let alone demonstrated that it can do so continuously and at a commercially competitive price.

Nevertheless, the Biblis decision moves the project beyond a proposal between a start-up and a utility and embeds it in Germany’s national fusion strategy. More importantly, it illustrates how parts of the fusion sector are moving into a much harder phase: building the lasers, fuel systems, materials, supply chains and power-station infrastructure required to turn experimental fusion reactions into an industry.

 

Biblis moves from nuclear fission to fusion

 

Biblis began producing nuclear power in the 1970s. Its two fission reactors were shut after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, when Germany accelerated its withdrawal from nuclear energy.

The former nuclear site will now anchor what Focused Energy calls a Fusion Industrialization Campus. Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein will provide an associated research and development campus, supported by a wider network of scientific institutions.

The application was submitted jointly by Focused Energy and Marvel Fusion, another German company pursuing laser-driven fusion. RWE is contributing infrastructure and expertise in power-station operation and regulatory approvals. TU Darmstadt and the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research are among the regional scientific partners.

Focused Energy says it plans to invest €200 million privately at Biblis over the next two years and around €500 million by 2030. Those remain company investment plans rather than money already spent.

They follow a $240 million Series A round announced in May 2026, which Focused Energy described as the largest fully secured Series A in the fusion industry to date. RWE contributed a further €60 million.

Biblis offers industrial land, expansion space, grid connections and some existing power-station infrastructure. RWE also brings experience in licensing, decommissioning and operating complex nuclear facilities.

These advantages will not make a fusion plant simple. A laser-fusion facility is fundamentally different from a nuclear fission reactor, and much of its specialised equipment will have to be designed and built from scratch. Reusing Biblis could nevertheless avoid some of the delays associated with acquiring land, securing a high-capacity grid connection and establishing an entirely new industrial site.

 

What is laser fusion and how does it work?

 

Nuclear fusion releases energy by joining light atomic nuclei. Nuclear fission, the process used in existing nuclear power stations, generates energy by splitting heavy atoms.

Most fusion developers are pursuing magnetic confinement. Tokamaks and stellarators use powerful magnetic fields to contain extremely hot plasma long enough for atomic nuclei to fuse.

Focused Energy is taking a different route known as inertial-confinement fusion. High-powered lasers strike a tiny fuel capsule containing deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen. The resulting pressure compresses and heats the fuel to extreme conditions, causing some of the nuclei to fuse and release energy.

Focused Energy is developing a direct-drive laser-fusion system, in which laser energy is applied directly to the fuel capsule. That differs from the indirect-drive configuration used at the US National Ignition Facility, or NIF. There, lasers heat a small surrounding cylinder known as a hohlraum, producing X-rays that compress the capsule inside it.

In December 2022, NIF achieved one of fusion research’s most important milestones. Its lasers delivered 2.05 megajoules to a target, which produced 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy. This was the first laboratory fusion experiment to produce more energy from the target than the laser energy delivered to it.

The distinction between the target and the complete facility is crucial. NIF was built for scientific research and nuclear stockpile stewardship, not as an efficient power plant. The wider laser system required far more energy than the fusion reaction produced.

Scientific energy gain has therefore been demonstrated. Engineering and commercial gain have not.

A commercial laser-fusion power station must produce more energy than the entire facility consumes, convert enough of that energy into electricity and operate frequently and reliably enough to recover its construction, fuel and maintenance costs.

 

The obstacles to commercial laser fusion

 

The required repetition rate is among the most formidable obstacles. A research facility may take hours to prepare for an individual experiment. A laser-fusion power station would probably need to fire several times per second.

Every pulse requires a precisely manufactured fuel capsule to be inserted into the reaction chamber, tracked and positioned accurately before being struck by the lasers. At ten shots per second, a plant would consume 864,000 targets every day. Some power-plant studies assume lower rates, but even five shots per second would require more than 400,000 daily targets.

Today, experimental targets can take days to manufacture and cost thousands of dollars. A commercial facility would need to produce hundreds of thousands of consistently accurate capsules at a cost likely measured in cents rather than thousands.

The lasers present another challenge. They must be far more electrically efficient than existing research systems, withstand continuous high-power use and fire billions of times without frequent replacement. Focused Energy is working with French laser manufacturer Amplitude under a $40 million agreement to develop high-energy, high-repetition-rate lasers, but these systems have yet to be demonstrated at power-plant scale.

Then there is the reaction chamber. Each fusion pulse releases high-energy neutrons that bombard the surrounding materials. Over time, that exposure can weaken components, alter their physical properties and make some materials radioactive.

A working fusion plant will need structures capable of surviving repeated neutron, thermal and mechanical loads. It will also require shielding, cooling systems and remote-maintenance technology that can replace components without keeping the plant offline for uneconomically long periods.

Capturing the released energy creates a further engineering problem. Most of the energy from a deuterium-tritium reaction is carried by neutrons. A surrounding blanket must absorb that energy as heat, which can then be used to drive a turbine or another electricity-generating system.

The blanket is also expected to breed tritium from lithium. Tritium is radioactive, scarce and not naturally available in the quantities required by a future fusion industry. No fusion power plant has yet demonstrated a self-sustaining tritium fuel cycle.

Crucially, all these elements must work together. A more efficient laser is of limited value if targets cannot be produced cheaply. Reliable target injection achieves little if the chamber materials deteriorate too quickly. A successful reaction is not commercially useful if the plant spends most of its time undergoing maintenance.

 

Germany builds an industrial fusion strategy

 

Germany’s interest extends beyond one start-up and one technological approach.

RWE has also invested in Munich-based Proxima Fusion, which is developing a stellarator based on magnetic confinement. Proxima raised €411 million in July 2026, with RWE and Google among its backers. Plans associated with the company include the possible future use of another former German nuclear site, Gundremmingen.

By supporting both laser and magnetic fusion, RWE is spreading its technological bets while positioning itself as an industrial partner able to provide sites, grid expertise and power-station knowledge.

Germany is taking a similar approach at national level. Its fusion-hub programme covers laser fusion, magnetic fusion, and the fuel-cycle and materials technologies both routes will need. The aim is to connect research institutions, fusion start-ups and established manufacturers before individual reactor designs reach commercial maturity.

Germany already has relevant industrial strengths in photonics, precision manufacturing, materials, engineering and power-generation equipment. Its challenge is to ensure that research conducted in European laboratories produces European supply chains, intellectual property and manufacturing capacity.

Biblis is therefore more than a proposed fusion reactor site. It is a test of whether Germany can organise an industrial ecosystem around a technology before commercial demand exists.

Fusion will not solve the country’s immediate energy problems. Germany must continue expanding renewables, storage and electricity networks without assuming that fusion will arrive on schedule. Focused Energy’s mid-2030s targets are ambitious, and substantial scientific, engineering and economic risks remain.

Energy infrastructure, however, is built over decades. If fusion eventually reaches the grid, the countries that developed its lasers, materials, fuel systems, regulations and supply chains will hold an advantage extending far beyond electricity generation.

Germany’s nuclear phase-out left it with contested sites and expensive decommissioning work. At Biblis, it is trying to turn part of that legacy into the foundation of a new industry. Whether a commercial fusion plant follows remains uncertain, but the attempt to industrialise the technology has already begun.

 

 

Further reading on MoveTheNeedle.news:

Proxima Fusion: the Munich spin-out trying to industrialise stellarators