"Germany wants to plug a star into the power grid, and the clock is already running.
Munich's Proxima Fusion, a Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics spin-off, is building stellarators. Twisted magnetic fields cage plasma at millions of degrees while light atoms fuse. No coal. No gas.
Alpha lands near Munich in the early 2030s to prove it can put out more energy than it swallows. Then comes Stellaris at the old Gundremmingen nuclear site in Bavaria, designed to be the first commercial stellarator feeding electricity to the grid, possibly within the 2030s.
Berlin's throwing over €2 billion at fusion through 2029.
The Sun's run on this for billions of years. Germany wants its own."
Source: German Federal Government Fusion Roadmap; Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics; Proxima Fusion
Stellarators currently do not output more energy than they input. As of today, no stellarator in the world has achieved a net energy gain (often called a Q-factor greater than 1).
While they are highly efficient at holding onto plasma, they are still strictly experimental machines that consume more electricity to run than the fusion reactions produce.
"Germany engineered a fusion reactor that generated more energy than it consumed for the first time in history ⚡
The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald achieved what scientists called impossible just five years ago: net positive fusion energy. For 17 seconds, the reactor produced 1.3 megawatts of output power while consuming only 0.8 megawatts—a 62% energy gain that breaks the fundamental barrier to unlimited clean power.
Unlike previous fusion attempts that needed massive external heating, the German design uses a twisted magnetic coil configuration that keeps 100-million-degree plasma stable without constant energy input. The stellarator achieved this by solving equations that required supercomputers running for 3 years to optimize the magnetic field geometry.
Why this changes everything:
⚡ Fusion fuel (hydrogen) extracted from ordinary seawater
⚡ Zero carbon emissions and no radioactive waste
⚡ Energy density 4 million times greater than coal
⚡ One swimming pool of water could power a city for a year
The reactor fused deuterium and tritium atoms, releasing neutrons that heated a surrounding blanket to 800°C, generating steam that drove turbines. This is the same process that powers the Sun, now replicated on Earth in a controlled manner.
Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research invested €1.2 billion over 20 years to achieve this 17-second breakthrough. The next-generation reactor, scheduled for 2032, will sustain fusion continuously and feed electricity directly to the European power grid."
Source: Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Nature Energy 2025
No, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald, Germany, did not produce more energy than it consumed.
Current Status and Purpose
Experimental Device: The Wendelstein 7-X is a purely experimental fusion device built by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.
No Electricity Generation: It is not designed to generate electricity or achieve a net energy gain (fusion breakeven).
Main Goal: Its purpose is to test and prove the physics and continuous-operation capabilities of the stellarator design for a future commercial power plant.
Performance Milestones
Energy Turnover: During experiments, the reactor achieved an energy turnover (injected heating power multiplied by duration) of up to 1.8 gigajoules over several minutes, but this represents energy put into the plasma via heating systems, not net energy produced by fusion.
Plasma Records: It has set records for sustaining high-temperature plasma for long durations (such as 8-minute and 6-minute pulses), reaching ion temperatures of 40 million degrees Celsius.
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(This post was last modified: 3 hours ago by Magical Realist.)
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