Question: What is your opinion on the progress of commercialised nuclear fusion, do you think it is viable in my lifetime?

Charlie Boswell answered on 19 Mar 2026:

I think commercialised nuclear fusion will definitely become viable in your lifetime.

Many experiments around the world are proving that they can control a fusion reaction effectively. The proof that the results from these science experiments are good is that several countries are now beginning to build demonstration power plants:

UKAEA is building STEP here in the UK
Proxima fusion is building Stellaris in Germany
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building Arc in the US

To name just a few front runners. Others are being built in South Korea, Japan, China and India.

These will come online in the late 2030s and 2040s.

These will generate fusion power and supply it to the grid, but making things commercially viable will take longer. These power plants are all expected to cost more to design and build than they will make from selling energy. But, as we build these demonstrations we will learn how to build power plants better and more cheaply.

We also need a lot of components that have never been built before. But after building lots of these demonstration power plants, there will be companies that specialise in building the kinds of things we need. They’ll make it cheaper to build other power plants like this in the future.

2040 is still a long way. Fusion is not the answer to the climate crisis we need now. Between now and 2040 we expect our demand for energy to double – in the future, fusion will be the way to most cleanly meet that energy demand. I don’t expect there to be lots of commercial fusion power plants until… 2050? Maybe sooner if private companies see a way to make manufacturing some components more cheaply. Still within your lifetime, and for now there are lots of exciting and interesting experiments to follow on our road there 🙂