Fusion In, Fission Out: The European Energy Gamble

By: Olaia Mujika Anduiza

Reading time: 8 minutes

Image: Excelsior University

Nuclear energy has been a controversial topic since Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011). These events did not just damage reactors, landscapes, and the environment, or upend countless people's lives; they also damaged the entire idea of nuclear power for generations.

Huge protests followed every time a government floated a new plant. Austria cancelled Zwentendorf. Germany launched its Energiewende phase-out after a decade of public pressure. Italy held a post-Chernobyl referendum and shut down its entire nuclear programme. The pattern repeated itself across the continent: citizens said no, and governments (eventually) listened.

The same unease applies to nuclear weapons. Even the countries that hold them, France and the United Kingdom among others, make everyone else sign non-proliferation treaties. They know what they have is dangerous, but they keep it as deterrence, one we all hope stays exactly that.

In short, there is a broad societal consensus that nuclear power is to be treated with extreme caution. Yet lately, I keep finding myself in conversations where people are genuinely reconsidering it. Not many, but more than before. 

Owing to this, I have decided to write about one of the most critical nuclear-related issues likely to come to a head in the near future. I believe the stakes are far too high to leave the debate solely to specialists.

Fusion in, fission out

Supporters of nuclear energy often rely on the same central argument: nuclear power is carbon-free. The generation process itself produces virtually no greenhouse gas emissions, making it attractive in a world seeking alternatives to fossil fuels.

Critics, however, usually point to concerns surrounding safety and radioactive waste. Material produced by nuclear plants can remain hazardous for thousands of years, raising difficult questions about long-term storage and environmental risk. In some cases, communities that agree to host nuclear waste repositories receive substantial financial compensation in return for accepting that responsibility.

For this reason, renewable energy sources are often seen as the preferable alternative. Yet renewables come with significant limitations of their own, particularly intermittency: solar and wind power depend heavily on weather conditions and therefore cannot always guarantee a stable and continuous supply of electricity.

What if there were a source of energy capable of combining the best of both worlds, delivering the low-carbon advantages of nuclear power without many of its major trade-offs? That is the promise of nuclear fusion. 

Every plant currently operating worldwide runs on fission, which is the more controversial nuclear energy. Fusion works the other way around. Instead of splitting a heavy atom apart, you fuse two light ones together. This is the same process that powers the sun. The energy output is enormous, several times greater than that of fission, and it does not produce the long-lived radioactive waste that makes fission so contentious.

In addition, fusion reactions cannot trigger the kind of runaway nuclear accidents associated with traditional reactors, nor can fusion itself be directly used to produce nuclear weapons, which rely on fission-based explosions as triggers. In theory, it offers advantages on nearly every front: abundant energy, minimal emissions, lower long-term waste, and far fewer safety risks. 

The catch, of course, is that no one has built a commercially viable fusion reactor yet. Scientists have been studying fusion reactions since 1952, and until recently, they always consumed more energy than they produced. Then in 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California managed to achieve a net-positive energy gain. It lasted a fraction of a second, but it proved the principle.

More than forty fusion startups are now racing toward commercial viability. The most closely watched is Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which plans to switch on a demonstration plant called SPARC in 2027, that is, next year. If that succeeds, it will not be an incremental improvement; it will be a category shift. 

What this would mean: zero-carbon energy, no meltdown risk, no weapons proliferation risk, and fuel drawn from seawater in quantities sufficient to last longer than any civilisation has ever planned ahead for. The solution to the current energy crisis (and many upcoming ones, if we do not get this one correct).

The EU in fusion

The EU is part of one of the most ambitious fusion energy projects in the world (ITER). This was mentioned in the Draghi Report, and the recommendation is unambiguous: Europe needs a stable and predictable fusion ecosystem for industrial innovation, with a clear technology development roadmap built around ITER.

In this context, a first-ever EU Fusion Strategy is expected in early 2026, framed as a deliverable under the Clean Industrial Deal and the Affordable Energy Action Plan. That is the good news. 

The less comfortable truth is that the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Japan have already launched national fusion strategies and are attracting serious private investment. Once again, Europe is engaged, but it is not leading.

Engagement without leadership has a name: being late. And this is an adjective Europe is struggling to shake off,  and one it cannot afford to make peace with.