Search

The sunrise of fusion startups has also reached Japan. A team from Kyoto University founded its fusion startup in October 2019. Kyoto Fusioneering Co. Ltd. assists private fusion developers through engineering solutions and business-to-business technical assistance to accelerate the practical realization of fusion energy.

Today, there are already many fusion startups around the world, mainly in North America and Europe. Fusion is no longer public-sector-only science; it is a business bringing excitement to the private sector as well. Taka Nagao, CEO of Kyoto Fusioneering, sees a real opportunity. "Even though 'fusion electricity' is quite far away, we're already in the phase of business opportunities." Fusion startups have been raising funds from venture capital funds to develop demo fusion reactors. Some of them look for cooperation with other startups to help their demo development, rather than doing everything by themselves. "So we see the manufacturing of fusion machine components as an already existing need, and it is becoming a fruitful market," he says.

His company focuses especially on critical in-vessel components that will be an important part of every fusion reactor—the blanket, which must be designed to breed tritium and efficiently remove energy for electricity generation, and the divertor, which extracts heat and ash produced by the reaction to minimize plasma contamination.

--Anri Kato