Bill Gates-Backed Nuclear Fusion Developer Wants to Deploy a Reactor in Japan (japantimes.co.jp)
(Saturday September 06, 2025 @05:26PM (EditorDavid)
from the nuclear-option dept.)
- Reference: 0179044136
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/09/06/0635217/bill-gates-backed-nuclear-fusion-developer-wants-to-deploy-a-reactor-in-japan
- Source link: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/09/04/companies/us-nuclear-fusion-firm-eyes-japan-reactor/
"A U.S.-based nuclear fusion developer wants to deploy a reactor in Japan in the late 2030s or early 2040s," [1]reports Bloomberg , "in line with the Asian country's broader plans to adopt the potent, low-carbon energy source."
> Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which last week announced it [2]raised $863 million from investors including Nvidia , has been in dialogue with Japanese government officials on the use of its technology, CEO Bob Mumgaard said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday... Several countries are eyeing the technology for its climate and energy security benefits but only some, like China, the U.S., Russia and South Korea have managed to crack the basics. Japan revised its national strategy in June to support fusion deployment and build a demonstration plant in the 2030s.
The article notes that Commonwealth "does not currently have any reactors in operation" — but that Mitsubishi this week invested in the company, in collaboration with a consortium of 12 Japanese companies. [3]From Mitsubishi's announcement :
> The Japanese Consortium will acquire technical and commercial expertise in policy, regulatory, and the development, construction, operation, and maintenance of ARC [power plant] from CFS's commercialization projects in the United States. In addition, each consortium company will bring together its know-how and expertise and aspire to expedite the commercialization and industrialization of fusion energy power generation in Japan.
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/09/04/companies/us-nuclear-fusion-firm-eyes-japan-reactor/
[2] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/08/30/1751217/fusion-power-company-cfs-raises-863m-more-from-google-nvidia-and-many-others
[3] https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/news/release/2025/20250902001.html
> Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which last week announced it [2]raised $863 million from investors including Nvidia , has been in dialogue with Japanese government officials on the use of its technology, CEO Bob Mumgaard said in an interview in Tokyo on Wednesday... Several countries are eyeing the technology for its climate and energy security benefits but only some, like China, the U.S., Russia and South Korea have managed to crack the basics. Japan revised its national strategy in June to support fusion deployment and build a demonstration plant in the 2030s.
The article notes that Commonwealth "does not currently have any reactors in operation" — but that Mitsubishi this week invested in the company, in collaboration with a consortium of 12 Japanese companies. [3]From Mitsubishi's announcement :
> The Japanese Consortium will acquire technical and commercial expertise in policy, regulatory, and the development, construction, operation, and maintenance of ARC [power plant] from CFS's commercialization projects in the United States. In addition, each consortium company will bring together its know-how and expertise and aspire to expedite the commercialization and industrialization of fusion energy power generation in Japan.
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/09/04/companies/us-nuclear-fusion-firm-eyes-japan-reactor/
[2] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/08/30/1751217/fusion-power-company-cfs-raises-863m-more-from-google-nvidia-and-many-others
[3] https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/news/release/2025/20250902001.html
I want to have sex with fitness models (Score:2)
by 50000BTU_barbecue ( 588132 )
I plan to achieve this by the late 2030s, maybe 2040.
Re: (Score:2)
by ffkom ( 3519199 )
Now that goal is achievable for a lot less money than Nuclear Fusion, just pay those willing to take your money for the service.
Re: (Score:2)
by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )
> I plan to achieve this by the late 2030s, maybe 2040.
You are going to need The Substance.
Re: (Score:2)
by gweihir ( 88907 )
If you have a few $1000, go to a country where it is legal and you can do it now. Not a great accomplishment.
Location ? (Score:1)
by hebertrich ( 472331 )
Try Fukushima's fantastic waterfront ! Beautifull out there .. perfect place ..
Finally! (Score:2)
It's good to see that fusion power is here, running, and will provide clean, safe, limitless, no radioactive waste power to fuel the world into a brave new future....
Oh..... wait... wut?
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess at some point Bill will reveal the true goal of this: Reviving Godzilla and have it destroy Sony in revenge for XBox losing the console war.
Re: (Score:1)
I think they have to be nuked 20 times for Godzilla to emerge. What are they up to so far?
Re: (Score:3)
Late 2030s/2040s basically means it's too late to be of much use addressing climate change. We need to be fixing it as fast as possible, today. We have proven technologies to do it. China is deploying them on a massive scale, more than the rest of the world combined. They aren't idiots, they aren't crashing their economy, their lights are staying on. They are doing it because it's a massive economic opportunity for them - lots of industrial output and jobs, lots of cheap energy.
Japan has been really lagging
Re: (Score:2)
> Late 2030s/2040s basically means it's too late to be of much use addressing climate change.
Worst case scenario it can be a replacement for their nuke plants. As I'm not terribly optimistic in humanity solving global warming by the 2040's I do think fusion plants would come in handy towards that as well though.
That's all assuming they can deliver in the time frame they're laying out which is a truly massive "if".
Re: (Score:2)
Oddly they've been announcing that we're out of time since a long time ago. It's a chief marker that whatever the science says, no government nor people nor the UN have ever believed it to be real. Nations go to war and mobilise vast resources and impose martial law and so on, over far smaller threats than what's supposed to be a planet ending scenario. Nobody, nobody actually takes climate change like it's reality. So if we look and judge them not by what they say but by what they do, it's obvious that man
Re: (Score:1)
> Nobody, nobody actually takes climate change like it's reality.
That couldn't be more false. Many, many, many people take it very seriously and do everything they can to fight it. Unfortunately, they're opposed by people like you who try to claim it's not really a problem. Many of them do it for their personal benefit, because addressing the problems would cost them money or cut their profits, and they expect to be dead before the worst problems hit. Some do it simply out of wishful thinking: believing the situation is that bad would be intolerable, so they take the
China is growing both renewables and coal (Score:2)
> Late 2030s/2040s basically means it's too late to be of much use addressing climate change. We need to be fixing it as fast as possible, today. We have proven technologies to do it. China is deploying them on a massive scale, more than the rest of the world combined. They aren't idiots, they aren't crashing their economy, their lights are staying on.
Because of their ever increasing use of coal. Renewable are not displacing coal in China. Both are growing in use. People get confused because the percentage of power generated by coal is decreasing, but that is because renewables are growing faster than coal is growing. It also ignores all the other uses of coal.
> They are doing it because it's a massive economic opportunity for them - lots of industrial output and jobs, lots of cheap energy.
That is their rationalization for increased coal usage, cost and jobs. With respect to fossil fuels, China chooses the lower cost coal, where the west often chooses the lower polluting natural gas.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-record-solar-growth-keeps-chinas-co2-falling-in-first-half-of-2025/
Quotes:
Coal use in the power industry fell by 3.4% compared with the same period a year earlier, while gas use increased by 6%, resulting in a 3.2% drop in emissions for the sector overall.
The reduction in CO2 emissions from coal use in the power sector is shown at the bottom of the figure below, along with the small rise due to higher gas-fired electricity generation.
So no renewables have started displac
Re: (Score:3)
> We need to be fixing it as fast as possible, today. We have proven technologies to do it. China is deploying them on a massive scale, more than the rest of the world combined.
China is also deploying more nuclear, hydro, and coal than the rest of the world combined. They are not doing this out of magnanimity. They are doing it because they need every additional energy source they can get. We apparently don't, so whatever.
Re: (Score:1)
> Late 2030s/2040s basically means it's too late to be of much use addressing climate change.
You realize that warnings like that are becoming a joke, right? Algore made predictions on global warming in 2006 with his movie and nearly 20 years later that movie hasn't aged well. It was apparently shown in many American schools for years. It was well received at first but now it's a punchline.
How about we consider a date further in the future to be "too late" to act? 2035 is only 10 years away. That would be only... what? The end of Trump's fourth term as POTUS? (That's a joke by the way, calm d
Re: (Score:2)
> Late 2030s/2040s basically means it's too late to be of much use addressing climate change.
Yes. Especially as this will take another 30-50 years to get ramped up after the prototype (!) performs well. (Which it might not do.) You cannot just build these things mass-scale when they are new.
Fully agree on China. Solar and cell-type batteries, they might dominate the market for a century. That is a huge opportunity and will be nice even when it goes back to replacement level. Europe will probably be dominating wind in the same way and might do so for flow-type and thermal batteries. This is really a
Re: Finally! (Score:2)
I mean, youâ(TM)re right that itâ(TM)s not here, but this is probably the safest fusion bet there is. We know really quite well how well Tokamaks scale. We have loads of examples of them, and we can predict really quite accurately how theyâ(TM)ll perform at this point. We know that there power density can be described as
(Beta_N ^ 2 R B^4) / q_* ^ 2
Beta_N and q_* are design features of the geometry etc of the tokamak, we know whatâ(TM)s achievable, and have plenty of examples already.
Re: (Score:2)
You just aren't hoping and praying hard enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Early 2040s means it's right on schedule. Only 20 years away, just like it's been for the last 70 years.
Re: (Score:2)
> Early 2040s means it's right on schedule. Only 20 years away, just like it's been for the last 70 years.
Yah. My concerns are that we are being fed an extraordinary lie about Fusion power, the idea that we've already achieved Q+
Sure, as long as we don't allow for the incredible amount of power to generate that. Qtot is the important critical number, without which this isn't going to happen. Right now, Qtot is something like .01. The Parasitic loads are immense. The tritium needed is in short supply. And unless the neutrons are special environeutrons, the radiation is impressive, and will produce waste. And