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During the same time India’s first prototype fast breeder (FBR) reactor achieved criticality, Bengaluru-based startup Pranos raised $6.8 million in seed funding to build India’s first commercial fusion reactor prototype. \u00a0<\/p>
It may not have caught eyeballs compared to India\u2019s formal entry into Stage 2 of the three-stage nuclear programme with FBR, but fusion-based power could come online way before the thorium based rectors to meet the country\u2019s energy needs.<\/p>
Don’t Miss:\u00a0BT Explainer:\u00a0Why are thorium-based reactors\u00a0decades away from deployment?<\/strong><\/p> Indian top conglomerates Reliance and Adani have held discussions on investments in the future technology that neither requires uranium or plutonium as fuel nor creates long-lived radioactive waste, making it a cleaner and safer alternative to nuclear fission reactors in India. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p> Why fusion based rectors?<\/strong><\/p> Indian top conglomerates Reliance and Adani have held discussions on investments in the future technology that neither requires uranium\/plutonium as fuel nor creates long-lived radioactive waste, making it a cleaner and safer alternative to nuclear fission reactors in India. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p> Must Read:\u00a0BT EXPLAINER:\u00a0Kalpakkam fast breeder reactor goes critical: What it means<\/strong><\/p> India doesn\u2019t have uranium reserves and imports all from other countries to run its existing nuclear reactors. Despite high thorium reserves, it will take two to three decades for the deployment of Stage 3 reactors.<\/p> Thorium-based reactors require an initial loading of \u00b2\u00b3\u00b3U — a material that does not occur in nature and must be bred from thorium by bombarding it with neutrons. The only source of those neutrons at scale is the FBR fleet. But FBRs take decades to build, and their early fuel is precious Pu-239 from Stage 1 \u2014 itself in limited supply. \u00a0<\/p> Fusion-based reactor technology is gaining traction with a couple of Indian start-ups looking at power generation by 2035, while thorium-based reactors are a few decades away.<\/p> Pranos, Anubal Fusion, Hylenr Technologies and ASPL Fusion are key players looking to make India energy independent using this yet-to-be-proven commercial energy source.<\/p> The most common form of fusion reaction occurs in stars and the sun. India has fission-based reactors, where when you split a larger atom (Uranium) into several smaller atoms, high energy is released in the form of heat. Fusion is the opposite of fission – you combine two smaller atoms to form a larger atom, and in the process, release energy that is exponentially higher than fission.<\/p> Looking at tapping all possible sources of clean energy to meet India\u2019s growing power demand, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) in January this year constituted a committee for the preparation of a roadmap for the deployment of nuclear fusion-based power generation in the country.<\/p> India is already contributing Rs 745 crore in 2026-27 for a global fusion project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a multi-country endeavour located in France. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in February 2025 visited the site in Marseille, France.<\/p> India\u2019s fusion progress?<\/strong><\/p> Pranos, Anubal Fusion, Hylenr Technologies and ASPL Fusion started working on fusion technology after 2024. The good part, all of them are working on different technologies to make a breakthrough in the commercial deployment of fusion-based power reactors.<\/p> \u201cThe reason being in 2022, the \u201cNational Ignition Facility\u201d at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US successfully demonstrated Fusion Ignition (generating more energy output than input) for the first time in history. Since then, the race to fusion has significantly heated up with over 40+ private companies,\u201d explains Nithish Kumar, Investment Analyst at Speciale Invest. The deep tech VC fund invested in Anubal Fusion in 2024. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p> Gandhinagar-based ASPL fusion, one of the youngest startups in the group, looks at a fusion-fission hybrid technology. It came up after the passing of the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, 2025.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cIndia\u2019s PFBR at Kalpakkam achieved first criticality, entering Stage 2 of the three-stage nuclear programme. But Stage 3, the thorium endgame, remains 45-65 years away. The bottleneck is \u00b2\u00b3\u00b3U, which must be bred from thorium and currently depends entirely on the slow FBR build-out. Fusion-fission hybrid technology offers a parallel route: fusion neutrons driving a subcritical thorium blanket, independently of the FBR fleet, potentially compressing the wait by 20\u201330 years,\u201d says Dr Prabhat Ranjan, Co-founder of ASPL fusion.<\/p> Ranjan also chairs the CEA committee, having members from NTPC, Niti Aayog, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Hylenr technologies. It is likely to submit its report in the next few weeks. \u00a0<\/p> Why is fusion gaining traction globally?<\/strong><\/p> Globally, several countries are pursuing fusion-based reactors as future clean energy sources. \u00a0According to the Fusion Industry Association 2025 Global Fusion Industry Report, more than $2.5bn has been invested in the fusion energy industry in the past year.<\/p> As many as 35 companies are aiming to operate a commercially viable pilot plant between 2030 and 2035, and the last five years\u2019 trend professes fusion\u2019s potential as a commercially viable and scalable clean energy solution.<\/p> The commercial deployment of nuclear fusion reactors is being looked at around the end of this decade. China plans to start construction of the world\u2019s first fusion-fission power plant, with the aim of generating 100 MW of continuous electricity for the national grid by 2030. The facility is to be built on Yaohu Science Island in the hi-tech zone of Nanchang, Jiangxi province, in central China, according to reports.<\/p> To enhance the focus on fusion energy research, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced in October 2024 \u202fthat it will provide $49\u202fmillion in funding for 19 projects in its Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program, which include foundational fusion materials, nuclear science, heating technology, magnet technology, blankets, fuel cycles, and first wall research. nuclear fusion India, Reliance Adani fusion investment, Pranos fusion startup India, nuclear fusion vs thorium reactors, India energy security nuclear, fusion reactor technology India, ITER India contribution, fast breeder reactor India stage 2, thorium nuclear programme India, clean energy future India fusion#Explainer #Reliance #Adani #banking #nuclear #fusion #reactors #thorium1776592715<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During the same time India’s first prototype fast breeder (FBR) reactor achieved criticality, Bengaluru-based startup Pranos raised $6.8 million in seed funding to build India’s first commercial fusion reactor prototype. \u00a0 It may not have caught eyeballs compared to India\u2019s formal entry into Stage 2 of the three-stage nuclear programme with FBR, but fusion-based power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2067,4862,25317,18639,25315,25318,25313,25312,25314,1855,25308,25311,25310,14095,831,25309,25319,25316],"class_list":["post-6784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing","tag-adani","tag-banking","tag-clean-energy-future-india-fusion","tag-explainer","tag-fast-breeder-reactor-india-stage-2","tag-fusion","tag-fusion-reactor-technology-india","tag-india-energy-security-nuclear","tag-iter-india-contribution","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-fusion-india","tag-nuclear-fusion-vs-thorium-reactors","tag-pranos-fusion-startup-india","tag-reactors","tag-reliance","tag-reliance-adani-fusion-investment","tag-thorium","tag-thorium-nuclear-programme-india"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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