A recent ITER workshop bringing together almost 50 CEOs and senior scientists from private fusion startups suggests that combining the technologies from magnetic and laser fusion experiments could accelerate the development of practical fusion power.

Though the field of fusion energy research is dominated by a few major efforts, there are today about 50 privately funded fusion startups in 12 countries that have garnered over US$5.6 billion in investments. Most of them claim that they will be able to achieve commercial fusion power by 2030.

Given the track record of fusion over the past 75 years, that must be taken with a grain of salt. Even the international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject ITER recently suffered a four-year timetable setback when the delivery of a 6,000-tonne magnet and other components was delayed.

Most fusion projects are based on fusing two heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, while others are looking at what is known as aneutronic fusion using proton-boron or helium-3 fusion. Having such a variety of approaches increases the chances of success, but it can also produce unproductive rivalries not seen since fusion research was regarded as a national security issue by the US, UK, and USSR in the 1950s and '60s.

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