An Embattled Merz Proposes To Allocate €1.7 Billion to Fusion Research

April 22—A rather desperate German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is perhaps the country’s most unpopular Chancellor in recent history, is now calling for major investment in nuclear fusion to the tune of €1.7 billion by 2029. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be considered a very important opportunity. There has been a good deal of activity by a number of private companies in Germany, in collaboration with their U.S. counterparts, who are working on fusion, and the Federal government has approved an “Action Plan for Thermonuclear Fusion.” Merz said that Germany also has “ambitions to connect the first fusion reactor to the grid in Germany.” In that case, he can join the crowd, as China and the U.S. are already in a race to be the first to “light a lightbulb” with fusion energy.

But given the deteriorating economic conditions in the country due to Merz’s determination to continue fueling the war in Ukraine and making preparations for an even greater conflict with its Russian neighbor, Merz’s commitment to a fusion-based economy seems more like the Chancellor grasping at straws. Without an end to the war in Ukraine and a recommitment to industrial excellence, rather than Merz’s foolhardy militarization of the German nation, Germany will not be able to develop a fusion-based economy, even if, on the very remote chance, that they do become first in “lighting a lightbulb” with fusion.