Left:


The shift to industrial mass production for fusion lasers is one of the major components of Focused Energy’s strategy Source: Oxford Sigma


also in the process of revising the regulatory framework under the federal government’s “Fusion Action Plan” which was announced in October 2025. Under this revised rulebook, fusion installations will no longer fall under nuclear law but under radiation protection law. In effect, this removes fusion facilities from regulatory regime designed for fission reactors. Forner describes the rationale succinctly: “Fission has almost nothing to do with fusion. We are inherently safe. We have almost no radiation. We have some radiation only in the chamber because we activate material. But there is no long-term nuclear waste.” From a lifecycle perspective, Focused Energy anticipates


a total operating and decommissioning timeline of roughly a century, but with drastically reduced radiological burdens. The only activated material is expected to be the first wall and chamber, which must be stored for around 50 years before recycling and a significant improvement over the multi-millennial burdens associated with conventional spent nuclear fuel for example. According to Forner, one of the most compelling


arguments for repurposing Biblis is that the decommissioning at Biblis and the developmental timeline for laser fusion align to a degree rarely achieved in major energy projects. The plant’s decommissioning stages open critical industrial spaces at the same time Focused Energy needs them. Entire halls, already cleared or nearing clearance, are available for immediate conversion. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently declared that “fusion has entered the stage of engineering,” explicitly identifying the Biblis proposal as a lighthouse project. “We ended up a year ago studying how we can transition


a former fission power plant into a fusion campus,” Forner says. Adding: Biblis is a perfect location for building all our test facilities up to the prototype fusion power plant and then in the next step, the first of a kind commercial plant. And it’s not only a fit for us, it’s a fit for a whole partnership with academia and with other industry partners where we can build out the supply chain and also provide research facilities for academia in the future”. Forner also highlights a key relationship that the Biblis


site represents: RWE is a major German utility and the owner and former operator of the Biblis nuclear power plant. Today RWE is a strategic partner, bringing the potential for utility-scale demand and in-depth operational expertise of commercial power generation assets. As Forner explains, “The reason we wanted to do this is, of course, if you want to build a power plant, you ideally have a strategic


partner as possible”. The involvement of RWE thus turns the project from a speculative scientific venture into something resembling a conventional energy infrastructure project, albeit one underpinned by physics that until recently remained experimental.


From research to engineering While acknowledging that significant research efforts are still needed to establish fusion as a commercial source of energy Forner, who co-founded Focused Energy with plasma physicist Markus Roth four and a half years ago, frames their early strategy as a calculated commercial gamble but one grounded in scientific momentum. “We took two major bets,” he says. “One was that


Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory would show net energy gain soon. And the other bet was once they show net energy gain, we can hire the team from them. Both worked out.”


The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)


repeated achievement of ignition, culminating in a 4.13- fold energy gain, shifted the field’s global outlook and today Focused Energy employs two of LLNL’s four leading laser fusion scientists full-time, with a third acting as a consultant. Roth’s decades of work in inertial confinement fusion, including extended periods at LLNL, provided the scientific foundation for the company, for example. Now comprising roughly 100 people split between Darmstadt in Germany and the Bay Area of San Francisco in California, the company positions itself as a world leader in laser fusion. The long-term goal of transforming Biblis is not to build a single fusion plant but rather to create an industrial and research ecosystem around laser fusion technology. The German state of Hesse has already designated laser fusion as a political priority and signed a declaration of intent with Focused Energy, RWE, Schott, Trumpf, and others. Forner notes that the University of Darmstadt plans to expand its infrastructure into the Biblis location, effectively co-locating academic research with industrial development. The feasibility study proposes a coordinated industrial implementation model for the project. Together with Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), ways are being sought to establish the hub with additional technology partners including suppliers, financial institutions, system integrators, energy suppliers, technical service providers, and public actors with a clearly defined structure governing development, operation, and ownership on the campus.


www.neimagazine.com | December 2025 | 27


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