Nuclear fusion is about to enter a new era

Today workers will start knocking down West Burton A, a coal-fired power station on the Nottinghamshire-Lincolnshire border that gave its final sparks of electricity to the grid last March.

West Burton, a coal-fired power plant in West Burton, was once considered the future. The Shah of Iran was impressed by the new energy technology when the plant was being built in 1965. It could be the future once again. The government has chosen West Burton as the site for a Nuclear Fusion plant. It is a sprawling area that also houses a gas-fired power station.

This is a very ambitious plan. Fusion energy has been the hot topic in the industry since the 1950s. However, it faces many technical challenges before becoming a reality.

The race will also be against a large field of international competitors. As well as a group of technology billionaires with deep pockets, the largest developed economies in the world, namely Japan and America, pour billions of dollars into fusion research. Before Brexit, Britain played a major role in a multinational project spearheaded by European Union. The West Burton plan is a sign of it going out on its own.

This will be no small task. Paul Methven says that it’s too early to estimate costs, but that the plant, and the infrastructure associated with it, will be similar in size to Hinkley Point C – the nuclear power station in Somerset being built by EDF. The latest estimate for the budget of this scheme is £33 billion.

Methven is the director of Step (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), and the chief executive of UK Industrial Fusion – the government-owned firm set up to act on behalf of the project’s clients. “I won’t try to fool anyone about the technical challenges and uncertainties. The economic potential is enormous. “We think that there is a market of $7 trillion a year worldwide.”

Hinkley Point, and all the other nuclear power plants built up to this point, are powered by fission. This is where unstable atoms can be split apart in order to produce energy. Fusion occurs when two small atoms (typically special types of hydrogen) are combined. The helium is created by combining the two atoms, and releasing enormous amounts of energy. The radioactive products are not as harmful and are shorter-lived.

It may be that the idea of generating clean, nearly limitless energy from water is too good to be real. The researchers must first create temperatures high enough (tens-of-millions of degrees) to allow fusion, then sustain and contain this reaction. Finally, they need to figure out how to get the energy. was the first to demonstrate “net energy”, which is more power being produced than entering an experimental plant , in a California lab , just over a year ago.

Britain has led the world in fusion research since decades. The first steps were taken in the 1950s with the Zeta programme (Zero Energy Thermonuclear assembly) at Harwell, Oxfordshire. The county is still a hub for government-funded nuclear fusion research, including the Joint European Torus facility built in Culham. This plant was a precursor to the massive multinational ITER plant currently under construction in south France. Oxfordshire also has a cluster privately-funded fusion start ups including Tokamak Energy, and First Light Fusion.

A joke is that fusion technology is always 20 years off, but recent technological breakthroughs and the infusion of research funding have given us hope that we can make it work. Methven stated that “a number of things are coming together which give me confidence.” There are significant developments in robotics, materials science, and computing. Also, there are advancements in superconducting magnetics.

The majority of experimental fusion plants employ magnetic fields to confine ultra-hot plasma inside “tokamaks”, specially designed vessels to promote the fusion reaction. According to Methven the West Burton plant is going to be a spherical tokamak rather than a doughnut tokamak. This design was chosen because it would allow for a smaller power plant to be built. It is not the goal to build a commercial power station, but to create one that will be able to provide electricity to the grid. The target would be to produce about 100 megawatts or a 20th of West Burton A’s output. Other goals are to show that the plant is maintainable and can produce fuel on its own.

The programme has a part to play in helping to create a supply chain for fusion in Britain. This will allow companies and technicians to take advantage of the new investments expected worldwide. Methven stated that “success is not just about delivering the plant.” Methven said that success for us is not just delivering the plant. Fusion is a good return on investment for science pounds.”

The work will initially be funded by the government. The next tranche of funding will be decided in March. Methven stated that Step would also seek private investment. “The UK will be running this but we may have partners who are interested in investing and doing deals to provide technology.”

The search for two large industrial partners will begin this year. One partner will be responsible for the engineering design and construction of the West Burton Plant, while the other is in charge of the construction. Methven stated that although individual companies may bid, we expect that consortia and joint ventures will be more likely given the wide range of capabilities required.

The future of Britain’s participation in ITER remains under discussion. It rejoined in September the Horizon scientific research program of the European Union, but chose not to return Euratom, a Europe-wide nuclear organization that is a member of ITER’s governing body. The UK Atomic Energy Authority announced that it was considering a number of options, including an associate membership. A spokeswoman stated that “we remain hopeful” that UK citizens can continue to contribute actively to the ITER Project.